Harley Finkelstein: You Must Requalify for Your Role, Every Year

0:00 It completely changed my energy levels. It made me exothermic again. It made me excited again. It it made me want to recommit year after year after year to to Shopify and to Toby and to and to this mission that we're on. Go a little deeper on your father and how that's impacted you and what that relationship was like at seventeen years old. the the rug I pulled from me and I was forced to Basic gromped. overnight. Ultimately, if you think about the mission of Shopify, it's we want to create more entrepreneurs. We want to make entrepreneurship more accessible, but we think that entrepreneurship allows Anyone to do that. It's the great equalizer. The way that I think I had the most amount of value to Shopify is the same thing that I want to be walk class at, which is

0:48 I wanna start with what areas of your life Do you think you have What other people would consider unreasonably high standards. P Um

1:01 Maybe start with I mean Professionally. I think. I am I'm pretty hard on myself.

1:09 In terms of achievement. Um Years ago I read something about the concept of of Abundance versus uh scarcity mindsets.

1:20 And I think generally I do not have an abundance mindset. About the things in my life. Some of that may be I don't know, this is going deep as in the first minute, but some of them might just be like multi-generational trauma, which I actually believe in. I think I carry some of the weight of my grandparents, Holocaust revivors.

1:38 The weight of my father who struggled his whole life financially. But I think w the way it manifests most is probably with my own career that I don't I still don't think I'm doing enough. That I have enough. That I am enough. And um

1:52 That's probably the largest area where I think I have very high standards. Maybe the second one is just I have very high standards for relationships. I think that the friendships that I have I hold very dearly t in my life and because I hold them dearly I hold them up. to a very high

2:09 Caliber of of quality. And sometimes th that disappoints people, sometimes th that means those people disappoint me. Um Those are probably the two major ones. Go a little deeper on your father and how that's impacted you and what that relationship was like.

2:25 My dad is an immigrant. to we're sitting here in Montreal. He immigrated here in the fifties. His parents were Holocaust survivors. after the Holocaust they were in the concentration camps, they survived. They went to Hungary, uh to a town called Debretsen.

2:40 And during the Hungarian Revolution things are really bad for everyone, but especially for Jews. Canada headline. had this amazing program. Where they let forty thousand Hungarian immigrants come to Canada in the revolution. So actually in Canada if you meet Hungarians.

2:56 generally they came in fifty six. Because this sort of cohort of of Hungarians came in the fifties, they all came by boat. And um My dad When they got here, they didn't have any money, they had no uh didn't know anyone here, they certainly didn't have any education.

3:10 So my grandfather ended up. selling eggs at a local farmers market not too far from here called the J the Jean Telan Farmers Market. And he created this egg stand. He called it Le Cappi Ten. It still stands there today. My uncle runs it, though it's been around for I don't know, seventy five years or something like that. And um

3:28 I think my dad was always very ambitious. He was he had that sort of But immigrant ambition. He wanted to

3:38 He wanted to have a better life than his parents had and he wanted his children to have a better life than he had. And growing up? He always sort of made us feel like we had We had enough. There was never sort of a sense of of scarcity.

3:50 uh in the in the house whatsoever. It was only later in life that I realized that that it was a bit of a uh Fugazi. It was it was fake. uh that we really didn't have very much, but at the time I didn't know that. It felt like I had enough. And um where things came to a a head and and and you know, you and I have been friends for a long time, so you you know the story um was

4:10 When I was seventeen, my dad Was arrested. I went to prison. And That was sort of the first time that I saw

4:19 true vulnerability. That's the that's where it all sort of The facade of A secure Foundation. came crumbling down for me.

4:29 I just moved f we were living in South Florida. I just moved to Montreal here. Uh it was two thousand one to go to McGill. Mom calls and says, Dad's been arrested. Uh he he was arrested for white collar crimes. And um for business crimes.

4:44 And I was I was mad at him, I was disappointed at him. I was Too young to fully have the maturity to know what this all meant.

4:57 Um And I think a lot of people talk about, you know, how trauma in their lives Dictate the rest of their lives. I think The moment actually there's um

5:08 There's an apartment not too far from here on the corner of uh Doctor Penfield and Peel. Uh there's an apartment in that building. Uh I think it's apartment four oh five. Where

5:19 There's probably not there anymore, but there is a h there was a hole in the wall where after my mother called me to tell me my dad was arrested, I took the phone And Through it. against the wall and and and and And dented the wall.

5:30 We can sort of get into what happened after that, but if you sort of fast forward today Um my dad's back in my life. I have a great relationship with him. I think like a lot of people that are of my vintage, I'm I'm forty one. you do begin around this stage of life

5:44 Two Have this epiphany or at least this realization that like the relationship of parent and child Flips a little bit. In some ways I feel like I'm sort of

5:55 The parent to my to my parents now. I wasn't ready for that. That sort of came out of nowhere. My parents turned seventy and it just Something something changed. But my relationship with my dad is Is is it's loving and

6:08 Um I have deep admiration for the life he's given me. But certainly. I think some of the trauma he sustained. From being an immigrant.

6:18 from being the child of Holocaust survivors. I've adopted that through his experiences, but also to the fact that at seventeen years old. the the rug I pulled from me and I was forced to Basic group. Overnight.

6:30 Was that the moment. were your standards for yourself changed. Cause I I guess what I'm getting into is like so often we're born into a situation, a household uh uh we're surrounded by people. We don't choose them. We s you know, we don't choose our parents, we don't choose our zip code. We don't choose uh concentration camps or anything like that. We're put in these situations and we adopt the standards of the people, the mindset of the people that were in

6:55 And then there's like another level to it, often for a lot of us, if we're not born into a situation where A parent has a high standard. for themselves then we don't adopt that ourselves. And I think A lot of entrepreneurs share this. Constant

7:11 I can be doing more, I can be doing better. There's a gap between where I perceive I could be and where I am. I remember We moved to South Florida. In nineteen ninety. Six, right? Nanny five or so.

7:26 I was around twelve years old. The area we moved into It was in Boca Ratone, Florida, in Palm Beach County. Okay is well known as being a a fairly wealthy area.

7:37 But we were not wealthy. I mean again, when we lived in Montreal, I didn't experience any there was always food on my table. I always felt like you know, I didn't always have all the stuff that I wanted, the you know, the air Jordans, but I had one pair of air Jordans. Um and so I didn't I didn't live a life of of where I didn't have enough growing up. But I remember moving to South Florida.

7:56 And That was the first time I think that I realized that other people have a lot more than I did. There were gated communities everywhere. But we didn't live in one. There were incredible private schools everywhere, but I couldn't attend one because it was too expensive. It was sort of in that age group in that sort of range where I began to realize that

8:17 Um My father wanted to have a better life. That he did. That he was he wasn't living in a community where we were the average or we were above average. We were living in a community where we were below average.

8:30 I remember asking my parents why I couldn't go to private school. There were these beautiful private schools all over Boca Ratone, these with these big beautiful gates and these wonderful buildings. And I remember asking my parents, why can't I go to Pinecrest or Saint Andrews, which are the two big schools? And my my mom said we can't afford it. It was like thirty thousand dollars a year, which was an insane amount of money for my parents at that point. And I think that's actually around when I began to get My first chip on my shoulder.

8:55 Something didn't sit fully well with me. And and I I think The way it manifested was Ambition Competitiveness. Some insecurity.

9:07 So I mean there I was. going to a public high school in South Florida was a You know. I was a short Jewish kid from Montreal, Canada. moved to South Florida, had no friends or family, there were four thousand students at the school.

9:20 And there were students from all different backgrounds, some gr live in Bocus, some were being busted in from Del Rey, a much lower c lower income community. There were police officers because That's what you had in big American public high schools. And I was scared shitless. I don't know sort of what

9:38 What drove me then, but like within a year. I was Like president of student council. I was wrestling varsity. uh because I figured out actually one of the advantages of being short and kind of stocky was

9:50 Was a pretty good wrestler. And so I was able to change my circumstances. By sheer will. At that point. The second thing that happened around that same period of time was that

10:01 I really I was thirteen and As as as you've heard before, you heard me talk about All thirteen year old Jewish kids go to a lot of bar mitzvahs. Almost every weekend. Um

10:11 And I was Enamored by DJs. I thought these DJs at these bar mitzvahs were like magicians. And I really thought these were the coolest people I'd ever seen. And although my dad didn't have a lot of money, the one thing he he did do, and he's done this my whole life was Any time I I had an idea. And I shared with my father.

10:29 He would say. Great idea. he actually there would be a physical manifestation of that, which was that he would make me these business cards. And uh um tonight you and I are are having dinner at my home and uh we'll go to my off my home office and I'll show you those early business cards, but I still have them lined up in my office. Every time I had a silly idea about a business.

10:47 My father would come home. And the business name. And It was this very simple

10:55 physical device. That was the equivalent of him saying you absolutely can do this. You weren't you you you have the capacity, you have the will power. You are You have the entitlement, like you are, you can do this. You have the permission to go do this.

11:10 And I ended up DJing five hundred barbamba mitzvah after that. Started my own DJ company, hired myself. And that was sort of my relationship with my I think with my dad over over my life, which is that I don't think I fully understood the baggage he was carrying with him his whole life.

11:27 But He was unequivocally supportive and loving of me. And Even when years later when he when he went away and we lost all our money

11:38 It was tough for me to Hate him. Because ultimately what I really believed was He was doing it. For me.

11:45 That he was going to be able to do it. He was taking massive risks with his own life and his own freedom in order to give me and my two much younger my one one of my sisters is ten years younger the other is is three years younger. He was doing it to give me and my siblings a much better life, and he was willing to risk What ended up being a

12:02 five or six years of of federal prison time. To provide that for us. And As I sort of reflect on on my upbringing in my childhood. It'd be difficult for me not to credit.

12:16 His transfer of confidence to me. With kinda how I ended up. So

12:23 I have I have anxiety now. Uh I I am uh constantly, you know, trying to do more, feel more, build more, have more that that that that that feeling of of sc of of of scarcity is in me. There's a bunch of of negative externalities that come with that.

12:40 But the other thing that came with it is What I believe to be an incredible amount of ambition. And that ambition and that energy. Uh, you and I have a lot of mutual friends and and and And I I think most of our mutual friends would describe me as someone that has is constantly high energy.

12:54 That high energy mostly comes from a place of Joie de vivre. And excitement and Yeah, I heard this great quote, the part of being happy is being excited by the elements all the elements of your life.

13:07 I'm excited by all the elements of my life. And I think that's a great question. While I probably have a complicated relationship with my dad. I'm here and I have this life. Partially because of him.

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15:38 All lowercase. go to shopify dot com slash knowledge project upgrade your selling today Shopify dot com slash knowledge project. Going into all the elements of your life. I know you're very selective about the things that you take on and the things that you do and you say no to a lot. I want to explore that a little bit.

16:00 What do you want to be world class at? And so what are the key elements of your life that you're pushing on? I am I'm not a generalist. I've never been a generalist. If you were to ask Lindsey, if you'd ask my wife.

16:14 Um in fact if you were to ask my Eight year old daughter Bailey or my six year old daughter Zoe what our family motto is, they'd all tell you the exact same thing. Uh it is How you do anything is how you do everything. That is our family mono, which

16:27 Frankly it means'cause they're six and eight, uh means it's my family motto and I've just sort of told them that's their family motto and they've they've adopted wholesale. Eventually they'll be old enough to decide that whether it's for them or not. But That motto certainly for me and Lindsay, my wife. It it it describes our life. There is an intentionality but everything that we do in our lives.

16:48 The way that I think about Um leading this incredible company. Um with my team Shopify.

16:56 to the way Lindsay thinks cooking dinner. to um The wine that I've been thinking about you and I could drink later tonight. There's a great intentionality about all these things and and I think that makes life fun and interesting.

17:08 But what I've Come to realise. Um This is my sixteenth year at Shopify. I'm forty one, so

17:15 A dinner for Not quite half my life, but almost. Um The way that I think I had the most amount of value to Shopify is the same thing that I want to be world class at, which is I want to be a A great storyteller.

17:28 I don't think I'm there yet. Um, I've met truly world class storytellers. We can sort of get into some of those later on. I'm not there yet, but that is the thing I want to be the best at. I love playing tennis. I don't think I'm ever gonna be a War Class Times player. I love to ski, don't think I've ever been war class skier. There are things in my li like DJ, I don't think I'm ever gonna be world class D. There are things I I do in my life that are fun, that are strictly for enjoyment.

17:49 And I enjoy the craft of it. But storytelling in particular is something that When I look at all the different things I've done at Shopify, it's the thing that I think has added the most amount of value to the company. And it also speaks to my my dynamic, this yin and yang dynamic that I have with Toby, which is that I've sort of always in hindsight now I can sort of see this, but I've always sort of viewed my role as as

18:10 He is the greatest product. person I've ever met in my life. He's this incredible tech visionary, especially when it comes to commerce. And my job has kind of always been to take the brilliant things he's built and tell the world about it. Tell investors, tell the media, tell And it gives me great

18:28 Joy. I love doing it. It's that, you know, when your Saturday morning feels like your Monday morning, you know you're onto something really great. Which Is sort of the Opposite of

18:38 you know, w what people describe as like Sunday scaries, which I've never felt in my whole life, but I know people do find that that to be a real thing. It's storytelling. I love that. And you also want to be a world class father and husband. Those are harder things.

18:55 very difficult to ping the satellite and get a ping back to know whether or not that's actually happening. With storytelling. I can get Third party

19:08 Objective feedback. being a world class father and and and husband, it's more difficult to track that. But those are things that are very important to me. It is very important to me that my kids believe that I'm a world class father and my wife thinks I'm world class husband. And that comes actually less natural to me than storytelling. Storytelling is sort of my ground state. It's the thing that

19:30 I would do if If you know. If I didn't have anything else to do and and I was left to my own devices. I would tell stories. I like telling stories. Being a great husband.

19:41 Often means doing things that are unnatural. Um, a simple example that I think a lot of us fall into the trap of um seems to be more of a Uh Something that that that men suffer from, at least In my experience, which is that Lindsay comes home with a problem.

19:57 And my immediate reaction is to try to help her solve that problem. I don't know if it's biological. I'm not sure it's my whether it's my amygdala or my lizard brain, but there's some Mm. reflexively, I I go into problem solving mode. It feels like like that's what I'm supposed to do. And

20:15 Eight out of ten times. It's not what she wants. And so because I know that I'm bad at that. We've created these, you know, our version of mnemonic devices, which is like I now ask her, Do you want me to solve this problem?

20:27 Or do you want me to just listen? And almost all we should just want to be able to listen. So In his in in the The opposite of like

20:35 You know, if someone asked me a question on a topic and I can go on it a tangent about a story. I actually have to spend a lot of time moving from my amygdala to my fr prefrontal cortex. to actually be a great husband to her.

20:48 Same thing with the kids. Um often what I realize is my reflex. with my with Bailey and Zoe is often the wrong thing. Bailey tells me about a problem. I go in solution mode. And what Lindsay will often say is

21:01 That's not what she was asking. You do it. She just wanted to be heard, or she was looking for your advice, or she wasn't looking for you to solve the problem for her. So that journey I think I'm I am um

21:14 I'm not I'm not at the sort of escape velocity yet with those two. Things I want to get good at. I think it's interesting because a lot of people who hold themselves to high standards in any area, hold themselves to high standards in every area.

21:30 And they want competing things. They want to be world class at their profession. They also want to be world class at being a father and world class at being a mother or partner or and they wanna be world class at everything. And these things often are in conflict. With each other. Um when I was younger easy play Street Fighter.

21:51 And Street Fighter, uh when you pick your character You basically pick a character. For two reasons. One is based on appearance. You want the big character, you want the small character, you want the you know, the woman or the man or whatever the character might be. The second element is you'll get the scores.

22:06 And are they great at defense? And then they're bad at offense or they're great at jumping, but they're bad in kicking. I think kind of life is like that a little bit too. That you have to sort of pick Your what you want to be good at. You cannot be good at jumping, defense, offense, kicking, punching in sort of the, you know, in in in the

22:24 uh the metaphor of Street Fighter. I think you have to pick. And I think that the that That's kinda what prioritization is. It it's deciding what you want and then reminding yourself of what you want. There are things that every now and then I get a glimmer of, you know, have I traveled the world enough? Probably not.

22:41 Do I take my kids on enough? You know Like month long. Trips Safari's I don't. I I can't do that right now. I have to select what I'm going to do. I can't be everything to everyone. And

22:52 I've I've kinda made peace with it years ago. That at this particular phase. Of my life. This is what I I I need this is what I want. It's also the reason why I'm very Um

23:03 particular but who I spend my time with because I do believe that There are generally Energy vampires and energy catalysts. In humans. Um

23:13 There's also energy vampires and energy catalysts. even in in geographies. I mean, you know, I I moved to Montreal two years ago. Partially was Montreal was this place that Lindsay and I kept finding was this energy catalyst for us. When we would come into the city, we'd spend time here Something changed in our brains. And

23:33 I think you have to be deliberate about those things. Like what do you want to be good at? What do you want to spend your time on? Who do you want to spend your time with? Where do you want to spend your time? uh from from a s a geographic perspective. And I think if you try to do all of it. All the time. You end up

23:48 Being very mediocre. Most people don't want to prioritize because I mean they do in a way, but they don't want to say no to anything. They don't I it's sort of like think about the courage to close doors. And It's really hard to say no to things.

24:03 It's especially hard, especially if those things there's an element of things that they give you Joy. I don't think you can live. I don't think the If you use the lens in your life of how you do anything is how you do everything, you have to be very careful about

24:18 Like how you do things. Because if you want to do everything well or you want to do everything with intentionality, you just have to be selective. I don't know anyone who is great at everything. Um the mentors in my life, the pe the role models in my life. They tend to be

24:34 Spiky objects. Shopify. is a team of spiky objects. We often joke about it as like the island of misfit toys, but What that what we really mean is that

24:45 There's no There's no consultant in the world that would have put together a team at Shopify in the early days, kind of in the in the sort of the middle, uh, you know. post IPO days and certainly modern days, right now in twenty twenty five, there's no team that like there's no no one will put But it works. Why? Because there is this

25:04 Commitment. On our team that Whatever Whatever the thing you're responsible for. you are going to

25:14 try to be the very, very best in the world at that particular thing. Product, design, sales, storytelling, finance, legal, whatever that might be. That's the commitment. And then every year you have to requalify for that commitment. When you look at it uh other companies Um I've sort of poked on Google a little bit on this only because I know a few people there that that are that that are like this, but you do see much more well rounded

25:37 executives and more well rounded leaders. Um it's actually the reason why. Net net I always prefer. founder led companies, the professionally managed companies. I think founder led companies are more interesting. Talk to me about the the notion of requalifying for your job every year. What does that mean?

25:55 Um It's sort of I mean it it's it's In the sort of same way that like we have this trust battery metaphor. That I'd Shopify those with autonomy have a very high trust battery.

26:05 And those that end up having to leave the company, it's because their trust battery is so low that like an old cell phone, it just cannot be recharged. You don't know exactly are you at forty six percent or sixty six percent, but you know direction where you're at. Um The same didn't think exists for this requalification that

26:22 You can tell when someone I I think you can tell when someone is requalified for their job. What that means is If you think about the growth of Shopify, which It grows. You know, it we we've we're going to log forget sort of the the top line revenue or or for cash to margin growth or anything like that. But just like the growth of Shavi product areas, GMV, the number of merchants, the geographies, the impact we have on the world, it is growing at this massive pace.

26:48 I think in order to be on our team, especially to be a leader Shopify. You have to believe that. You have to want to keep getting better, meaning stasis is not acceptable. The thing you did last year may may have got you a high five and a at a boy and a pat on the back and and and a and a Whatever. All the great stuff that comes along with that. That is not good enough anymore.

27:10 And actually at Shopify, I think that's truly I mean The source of that energy is Toby. that there's probably no one that I've ever met on the planet. I've worked with Toby now for almost two decades You know him v v very well, too. He's he's a friend of yours as well. There was no one that pushes himself to be the very best.

27:27 at product and technology way he does. And so he inspires all of us to to just continuously say, Okay. Last year It's pretty good. This next year I think I can like I think there's another Another gear left.

27:39 That's actually the the the gift that he has given me in my career is that He's consistently Environment uh you know almost two decade period. he has been the person more than anyone in my life, maybe other than Lindsey

27:52 Who has seen a better version of me than I saw for myself. He keeps reminding me all the time. It happened a couple weeks ago, we were on an off site that there is another gear in me. And So now he presents that

28:06 that optionality, that that that o that opportunity. And now it's up to me to actually Go through. Um And I think For someone with my personality.

28:17 Was someone with my ambition. That works very well for me. What does it look like when he reminds you that there's another level for you? Does he just come he he doesn't come to you and say, Hey, Harley, there's another level for you. What does he say? He's much more German about it. Um

28:33 Which is funny because he sort of calls it the German it's like the German thing for him, but it's actually also like the Jewish mother thing for me, which is You know, you just got ninety eight percent of your exam and you go show your mom and your mom says, Great, what happened to the other two percent? Um which actually I've now learnt it's actually very much a um at least the way it's been described to me is that it's actually an immigrant thing. But a lot of immigrant parents are like that. Like, that's great, but like what happened here? How can you do better? So that's part of it. The other part of it is just that When he gives me

29:02 A compliment. It is because I w I went so above and beyond like he basically sets a bar for me of what great looks like. And

29:12 Doing my job really well. is the expectation. knocking it out of the park, going like resetting what corporate storytelling looks like. Or how to do

29:24 you know, earnings. When you do that exceptionally well, that's when he says, That was a great job. And he is He's very thoughtful about how we explains how he gives those

29:35 That was really great. He kinda shows you that thing you did that is so far beyond the expectation of Of the industry.

29:46 It'd be really great. Like I say this I say this a lot, but I doctored from him, which is every person that works at Shopify should be able to go to their industry conference, whatever their category whatever uh area they're in the business. And they should give the keynote about how they're doing their job completely different than everybody in the crowd. Which is like the most global maxima, not local maxima thing.

30:08 It is like the local maxima. is like like you know, you're at the top of the mountain, you're doing better than everyone else is doing your job. The global maximum, which is like Toby in a nutshell, is there's a whole other mountain over here. That's where you That's how you requalify. And

30:24 That makes it incredibly challenging but also incredibly rewarding. There's this you know thing about Life's work. I think it obviously gets lumped into like You know

30:34 happiness and contentment and all that sort of stuff also. Um We can talk about how to find your life's work, but ultimately the way you continue to do your life's work is is when you feel fundamentally that. You can see serious progress. It's not type one fun. It's like

30:50 Type two fun. And type two fun is a type of fun that you only realize that it was fun after you complete it. In the middle of the race. It's not really that much fun. It's at the finish line, you're like Wow, that was fun. That tends to be

31:03 the developmental journey of of Shop Mafai. a little anecdote about the that's your job, that's what you're supposed to do. I was at an NFL training camp. And Uh I was with Carl Dubas, he was the GM of the Maple Leafs at the time we were watching this practice. And this rookie receiver caught the ball and it was a great catch, but he started celebrating the coach came over and he's like

31:27 That's what you're supposed to do. Why are you celebrating? I'm paying you to catch the ball. I'm your whole job. You're paid to catch the ball. And it's stuck with me ever since then. That's right. It is um I think when you're when you're playing at a certain level of Of play. Whether it's through podcasts or through business or through

31:44 sport or music, you know, or or art, m music. If you try to If you if you want to be above average Practice

31:53 Determination. But this idea of thinking about things in sort of this like local maximum versus global maximum perspective. creates a whole other surface area of which you can go and and do Crazy and cool stuff.

32:07 I do think that is difficult to do by yourself. Um, I think you actually are one of the unique situations where you hold yourself to such a high standard that you actually don't need anyone pulling you to get better at your craft. because you hold yourself to this ridiculous standard. Most people are not like that. Most people need someone else to to help them pull up to the next level. And if you find someone like that.

32:28 And you can you sort of mutually commit to one another. I mean that's real partnership. That makes for That's how you build a hundred billion dollar company, I think.

32:37 It's fascinating'cause I tell my kids that, right? Like When you're at school, like try to partner with the people who are gonna hold you to the highest standard, who are gonna demand the most from you. We're gonna show you what you're capable of and what you can do. Uh and they take that too and they hold other people to really high standards. That's right to that. That's right. And then you sort of you know, it's it is ironic though, uh and almost paradoxical that you know the people that you often hang out with in in high school or school in general, um, tend to be very much like you.

33:04 And what I've actually experienced is that I think the best partnerships, at least from business perspective, are people that are totally not like you. Totally. I'm not sure Toby and I would have been friends in high school. I was class president. He was like taking apart computers in his bedroom. Yeah. Um The people you tend to spend more time with that you gravitate gravitate to, you s you tend to have similar interest with. you tend to have similar skill sets with. You're both into basketball. You're both into, you know, debate club or whatever might be. But actually if you're in high school right now and you're watching this and you want to start a company

33:33 Might. My advice would be if you're in like drama club, go find someone like in the A V club and then go find someone in like the computer sci like the the coding club. And go find someone like who's painting. And those should be your co founders because each of you now can bring different skill sets to the table, and together you can build something remarkable. My youngest wants to start a company and he's like, Why should I go to university? Why do I want to go to college? He's like, I don't need that. And I'm like, Well, maybe just to find a co founder. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I wanna come back to sort of uh requalifying for your job though, because you switched from Being COO

34:08 to being president or chief storyteller as you call it. Talk to me about that transition, how you came to realize that was the thing. 'Cause you went from thousands of people reporting to you to A smaller number. If it's a lot of people, it's still much smaller. at a seven or eight thousand person company, like a small number of people, still a lot of people, but

34:28 Yeah, that was um Okay, so a couple things on that. And a a couple of different sort of um. levels of uh of abstraction, I guess. I do believe that they're different phase of companies.

34:38 And I think at the early phase of companies It's just It's just mayhem, like everybody do everything. It's like Swami Knife time. And in those early days of Shopify, there's a photo that every couple years I put out on social media of me like mopping the floors. Uh, you may have seen it, but like

34:55 I I I I may have them off the floor once or twice, but It was it's sort of a You know, it's it's a metaphor for like those early days that like the floor is dirty. You do everything. You do everything. That's kinda how it works. And then I think, you know, as the company begins to operationalize, you begin to have teams and organizations and general managers and divisions and all that. I became chief operating officer around the just just post IPO. Until around twenty

35:18 Twenty one, I think, so but for six years. I did it because that's what Toby asked me to do. Um we'd never had a COO before and and and it was sort of this way of me looking after operations specifically business operations.

35:32 It didn't come naturally to me. Um But back to sort of the, you know, lifelong learner and the global maxima thing. And it'll be pushing me into different directions. I was like, I'm gonna get good at this. But it was never natural to me. Never felt like I was in my flow state.

35:48 But I liked it. I liked having a big team. I liked being responsible for a lot of things. There was a little bit of Ego in there. Mm-hmm. Um I felt very important. And

36:00 It took me while to realize that. Maybe this isn't for me. Maybe I'm not the right person to do it. Around the same time, um I had someone that that we had hired. Th that was reporting to me, who was running our payments team, Caz.

36:15 And In almost every interaction I had It did sort of feel like And Kes really likes operations, like Like he just

36:24 It feels like his ground state. He's kinda always doing it and and and so I I I saw glimmers of like what people that are truly operationally minded. look like. But a couple A couple s hurdles I had. One is that Um

36:40 I don't think I was ready to admit that this was not For me this wasn't my thing. I don't like to admit that I'm not good at something. I prefer to much get to get better at it. I also I think I was Afraid.

36:52 To say The thing I want to do is is like storytelling. It felt like maybe that's not enough. Mm. And And it it came with, you know, smaller team, it came with it just came with less

37:06 You know. Um Less areas of responsibility. Um, even though each of those were shallow, I was like What I really want to do is this other thing. It's like one air responsibility, but it's really, really deep. Is that enough for me?

37:18 it became obvious to me that that wasn't the right the right the right thing. And actually I think it became obvious to Toby that like I wasn't very happy I wasn't being my exothermic self. Mm-hmm and for someone that's always been exothermic, that's always been high energy. Um In those sort of

37:33 At the end of my of my you know CO stage. I didn't have it. I I wasn't meeting merchants the same way that I like I love meeting merchants, my favorite thing in the world. I just I wasn't It was clear was in the wrong year.

37:47 And it was Toby that identified it and said There's this other thing. We could find someone to be the chief operatic and uh and it was actually be between myself and um And and Cas taken, it was Toby Shannon who initially took it. Uh, he was a great chief operating officer, uh chief uh CO as well. Toby almost gave me the permission to say.

38:07 This other thing that you think is maybe not Enough. It's like It's it it's totally enough. Like this is super important. And more more importantly You can be world class at this thing.

38:19 And that was this like Huge. Aha moment. It reminded me that Okay.

38:27 The Venn diagram, but what I love doing, you know, like it's like the icky guy. almost perfectly described. Like what do you love? What is the world value? What can you get paid for? What like I forget all the different components of it, but that's generally The icky guy. immediately as I began to even understand what Ike was, I was like, that's it for me. It's like this role.

38:46 the storyteller, the president of the company, where my job is to Infect in the most positive way the world with the Shopify message that every enterprise merchant on the planet that should be on Shopify, I'm gonna convince them to do so. That every partner that should work with us, I'm gonna convince them that every investor knows exactly how great of a company this is, that every media opportunity I have there, I'm gonna talk about the the This journey, this product, this

39:10 This incredible piece of software we've built, why it is So Important. Why it is so dramatically different than everything else that has come before us.

39:22 I don't know, it was four or five years ago. Um It completely changed my energy levels. It made me exothermic again. It made me excited again. It wanted it made me want to recommit year after year after year. to to Shopify and to Toby into and to this mission that we're on. I I fell in love with the mission again. I I almost forgot about the mission for a while. It became so operational.

39:45 And what it also Substantial was that. I didn't have to be good at all these different things. If the one thing that I feel like can be world class to go back to that concept.

39:57 Is sufficiently value add. That will change the company, that will change the structure of the company. That's enough. I am enough to do that.

40:06 Um And I I really think that most companies end up Looking at

40:14 A buffet of their leaders and looking at the slots. That are available. Like Go here, go here, go there. And I think it takes a very thoughtful and very often

40:24 A founder CEO or founder leader like Toby, someone like that to say Okay. Here are the players I have. Here are the things that are most important. I'm going to

40:34 Skill match. So it isn't who's been there the longest or who's had that job somewhere else. It is who is the very best person On the planet, not in the company on the planet for this job. And that person exists here, that's the job they should do. It allowed me to recommit for a lot longer to Shopify to to working here to helping to build this company. It's made me a lot happier. Um, even Lindsay would say that.

40:58 between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two. Which I use those years because we're still in covet and like we're still work from home and and I wasn't around a lot of people and as a power extrovert that was challenging for me. But simply changing My areas of responsibility. Completely re engage me.

41:15 And it's it feels like this is a job that I always should have had. I think Shopify I think Shopify had to get to a particular size and place for me to do this. It almost feels like Shopify kind of grew into the company that would allow me to be its storyteller. I couldn't have done this in two thousand ten or two thousand thirteen or two thousand eighteen. It had to happen at the right time. Um and I'm super fortunate that it did and grateful that it did. I feel like you've had more of an impact than you think, not only on Shopify, but on other companies. I feel like the storytelling and getting out there more, like you've really changed

41:48 the bar for a lot of other companies as well. So not only Shopify, but you've sort of set Other people didn't even know it was possible and to have that sort of impact. You know, conference that we talked about as a metaphor that, you know, I try to stand I I want to be able to stand up at at at the conference of every Chief storyteller every You know. president of any of any company in the world and say, here's I'm doing it differently. Um, you know, Lulu is on our board, who's an amazing, uh, probably one of the greatest comms

42:18 geniuses on the planet talks about this go to Rex, she's a famous Go direct manifesto. That's kinda what I've always been doing. This idea that Even the way that I I treat earnings, it's not a it's not an earnings call for me. It's a storytelling opportunity. Yeah. And Um I love seeing all these companies now, you know, now you see uh a bunch of tech companies turning the camera around and them being like, Here's how the earnings went. Like been doing that for a while now. And so I'm I'm That's what I mean then. Uh it's

42:46 I think it's really fun and I and because I'm now seeing other companies do that, I'm like, Okay, so like Now, how can I keep going from here? How do I like what's the next step here? How do I re-qualify? I've done that already. I've done the like go directly on earnings. Like, what's the What's the ten X version of that? What's the global maximum version of that? That makes it really fun. Despite what you uh may think of yourself I think of you as a world class storyteller.

43:10 Thank you. How did you develop that skill? What does that look like? Like how do we make other people world class? Or better at storytelling. Practice really helps. Yeah, now I get to do like the knowledge project. It's like this is a big podcast. I'm I'm not trying to, you know

43:24 Blow smoke or flatter you, but this is a big podcast. Um I didn't start by doing the Shane Parrish podcast. I started by doing a lot of tiny little local podcasts and watching them over and over again. You know, I know there's some people that that hate watching themselves on camera. Uh, maybe this sounds like narcissistic or something, but I I don't mind. I actually like the I I like watching it because I was able to remove Connector words, for example. I say um a lot less than most people do because I've watched myself Do it a lot.

43:51 And I'm like, I'm gonna fix this particular issue. That's the first thing. The second thing is I think a lot of people end up trying to emulate other Speakers. I see a lot of in tech in particular there was an era where like everyone kinda sounded like Gary Vanerchuk for a little bit. I know Gary well, he's a friend. I think Gary is incredible. you know, speaker and and and his keynote are are

44:10 Legendary. But that's his style. And then You see other people that try to do the whole Rogan thing or the Shane thing or the Tim Ferr thing and and I don't

44:21 I never tried to be somebody else. I want it to be my the version of me. Which is a little bit excited. Not always as perfectly articulate. I su I wanna make sure everyone understands me, but I've sort of developed my own style of it. And then maybe the third thing, which is Probably obvious, but

44:38 Great mentors, people that I deeply look up to. When it comes to speaking. Uh and I I think the person that that's probably done the most for me in terms of watching how he speaks, how he captures the attention of a crowd with story is Seth Seth Godin. I think Seth Godin is the world's greatest storyteller. He can tell a story about

44:59 Uh Brossar spritz? I've a great story, but he talks about he could tell a story about coffee or purple cows. And and watching him and talking to him and learning from him. And then it's just reps.

45:12 How many reps have you done? I mean The reason that You know, Toby is such a great coder. He's written more code than probably anyone else at Shopify.

45:20 Even now. I mean, he doesn't write as much code now as he once did, but just in terms of longevity of software development, he's had more reps than other people have done. We've we hear this about athletes all the time. It like the greatest athletes were the ones that got up early that went to the gym before that everyone else got to the gym. Like they had had double work out. That's a big part of it. I think the other thing is

45:42 The the content you talk about. I think it is really easy to talk about. stories that are your stories. When I when I when I tell the story, whether it's about Shopify

45:53 Or it's about my life or my family. Or Djang or something like that. I always start with my experience. When I was

46:02 Тертін, а травил хі. I think by starting with you. And you putting yourself into the story one It can't be wrong'cause it's your story. Like It's happened to you. But two

46:17 It immediately invokes if if if it's true. You can speak with such conviction, with such passion. The easiest story for me to tell is out of Shopify because the story of Shopify is a story of entrepreneurship. And the store and but my story is also about entrepreneurship. My family's story about entrepreneurship. My friends around me, you know you know almost every one of my best friends, they're all entrepreneurs.

46:41 Some of them are in the restaurant business and some of them are in FinTech and some of them are y lawyers, but What they all have in common is they all are first and foremost entrepreneurs. So The storyline that I've chosen

46:55 Is entrepreneurship. And it's not an accident that the company that I've committed to for so long for decades. is the entrepreneurship company. Could I sell.

47:06 Cars or could I sell Uh biotech. Maybe I don't think I could be I can tell the the the story in that way. I think

47:16 What isn't wonderful about modern day business leadership. Is that we are not selling widgets. Mm.

47:24 I think And if you've ever watched like Some of the old um Like Glenn Gary Glenn Ross movies. Or

47:32 Uh I mean frankly e like always be selling. Oh yeah, A B C, right? Closing. Always be closing. Always be closing. Uh you know, coffee for closers. You watch some of these old school business or even um Uh Shoot Wall Street. uh Michael Douglas amazing movie. You watch these movies and you see these like business owners in these movies.

47:52 And it's a reflection, of course, of of of of the society at the time, but they were selling widgets. The executive could be selling tires or the executive could be selling soda water or they can be selling whatever. It didn't matter. They were implementing the same strategies. To sell One widget as they would any other.

48:09 In many ways, business is now way more personal. And I think one of the advantages of it being more personal is that you're able as a like the company can attract people whose personal mission is tied into the company's mission.

48:22 I don't think that there are any When I Look at every leader that I admire, business leader that I admire, entrepreneur that I admire. there the there's no accident for why they're at their company or why they built their company.

48:36 Either they experience a problem themselves and they went to solve the problem Yeah. they had something happen to them when they were younger in life and and that kinda changed their mindset around that that that product. There is a deep connection to it. There's I mean Firebelly T, my little T uh

48:53 T company that they sort of Dave Siegel that you are you're now involved with a little bit. Um The reason I wanted to start this company with Dave is like there's no one on the planet more passion but tea. And the fact that David Siegel, who created David's tea, was not running a tea company. You know, in in in the modern World. Was ridiculous.

49:14 All he cares about is tea. Of course he should be He already started one because of, you know, uh some interpersonal issues, he ended up leaving his his his company. If you

49:26 Are deeply passionate about something. I wear a James Purse t shirt every day and Tid them we're all James Burst. Course James Pearce is successful. Because no one thinks about GSM counts.

49:37 Or Rib. More than he does. No one thinks about Japanese cotton versus American cotton born heat is no one thinks about actually these are uh they're called the parachute pants, these are his favorite pants. Um I w I hung out with him a couple weeks ago and we both literally w walked in wearing the exact same thing. Of course his pants are amazing'cause he made these pants for himself. It just turns out that

49:58 Thousands of other people also want to wear. Those pants. The idea that the people that are running businesses are deeply connected to those businesses and the products they're creating. I think is a new way to run companies that our parents and grandparents didn't have.

50:13 Some You know, go back a hundred and fifty years, some of the bakers truly love baking. But some of them. just did so because they had to survive. My grandfather had no interest in eggs whatsoever. Anytime I tried to engage him on eggs, I got a blank stare.

50:28 He wasn't selling eggs because he cared about eggs. He was selling eggs as a means of survival. Forced entrepreneurship. And passion based entrepreneurship are very, very different things. And the idea of us, you doing your life's work and me doing my life's work. That is a concept that was foreign to our parents and grandparents. Totally.

50:48 They did sort of what they had to to Life's work. That's a nice, you know, like I can I I never said that to myself. Ex that's a luxury, young man. You know? Wow, aren't you lucky? That sounds like a hobby to me. You know, as opposed to They were rough and tumble. They were like, do whatever we needed to do to survive. If it was eggs or it was garments or whatever. You know, we we're sitting in Montreal right now and about

51:12 Ten kilometers. North of here is the Chavanel Garment District. Um The Chevronaux Garmin District is an iconic Area. It's

51:21 Probably Four streets by four streets. and American apparel, Buffalo Jeans, Algo Industries, so many companies, Kapar Suco Uh more more modern companies, essence is based there now.

51:36 Um Moose Knuckles is based there. It's this tiny little area that So much of the apparel industries that we know today we're created out of. Why did that exist? It existed because it was the lowest barrier to entry.

51:51 The needle trade or the Schmata business, which is sort of the the Jewish version of of that. The reason you see so many Jewish immigrants go into the Shemata business, the needle trade is because low barren entry. They couldn't go to biotech. Biotech had a high barrel entry. You couldn't be You couldn't have no money and start a biotech company or start a pharmaceutical company or start technology company.

52:12 But the clothing business. You need a snow sewing machine, and that's it. And I It's wonderful that we have that industry that's been built here.

52:22 But there's a lot of people that ended up building those companies that built it because they had no choice. As opposed to because they chose to be. Like James chose to be in in this industry. You're the second person in the last month who's mentioned him and his shirts. I gotta check these. Yeah. They're great. I wanna come back to mentors for a second. So Seth Goden is one of your mentors. You have a personal board of directors in different

52:44 aspects of your life. Whether it's relationship, business, storytelling Walk me through. Uh some of the categories you have and some of the people. That are in those categories.

52:56 One thing that I think a lot of people And I myself made this mistake was that you end up When you think about the idea of a mentor You end up thinking about the three sixty of the mentor. Like I'm going to emulate everything about the mentor. My experience has been that

53:11 Back to the spiky object thing that Any of the m any mentors that anyone watching or listening have in their lives. They probably are really good at something. look really good. Obviously they wouldn't be a measure otherwise, but they're probably lacking in other areas entirely. And I had a mentor early on in my life that ended up convincing me to go to law school.

53:30 And I won't say his name now because I'm about to say something fairly uh Well, he won't mind, but but I I won't say his name anyway. Um He's on the hand of convincing me to move to Ottawa to go to law school. He convinced me to go to law school. to become a better entrepreneur, not become a lawyer. great man I've known him since I was a child. I was actually

53:46 Mm. years before I was the ring bearer at at His First or second I think it's first wedding or second wedding. Which brings you to my point is that like

53:55 This guy's an amazing career mentor and helped me more than almost anyone else. He's not exha I he's not what I would call a marriage or relationship mentor. He's on his third marriage now. Um and he's happily married now, but he's on his third marriage. If you try to cargo cult everything about one particular person, you're going to adopt all their good stuff and all their bad stuff. Instead

54:18 It's much easier to figure out what are the couple things I want to get good at. Um entrepreneurship. Being a great dad. Being a great You know.

54:26 Philanthropist, uh, a great DJ. I want to be a great T entrepreneur. And then looking at who is really good at that and ask them specifically to help you with that narrow category as opposed to being a lot more broad. The other thing that happens is that There's a Um

54:41 A timeliness. to these mentors, meaning Someone that was your mentor w I don't know if you've ever had any business coaches or any coaches in your life. Yeah. So I I think um I have a great coach in my life right now. Um it's

54:54 probably my third or fourth that I've had. One of the things I think about coaching and business coaches in particular is At some point You end up hearing a lot of the same stories or lessons or tools, meaning they have this wonderful toolbox. And part of what you're paying them to be your coaches for them to open their toolbox and show you all their tools and and you can adopt some of them for yourself. But eventually you've seen the entire toolbox. And that's a really good time. And it's not a negative thing. It's not a criticism. It's a really good time to sort of move on to the next.

55:21 Coach. The same thing goes with mentors that I don't think There's probably not going to be any one mentor that's going to be your life mentor. in perpetuity.

55:33 Because ultimately you are gonna change. They're gonna change. You're gonna want some new perspectives. But One of the things that Lindsay and I did We began to look at the r the couples we knew, most of them meaningfully older than us.

55:48 And saying who do we think has a really good relationship, a really good marriage. How can we kind of emulate that? And we didn't say anything to them at the time, but then after we got married, we began to Nonchalantly sort of.

56:02 spending time with them, like double dates with them and kind of seeing how they interact with each other and and what their Like what their style was with each other. And we ended up developing kind of these relationship mentors. We ended up developing parental mentors and It's been a it's been awesome.

56:17 It's been this incredible thing and and Some of these people. That are c sort of quote mentors. R Famous people.

56:25 Um Lindsay and I recently created our family foundation. And we wanna have a real impact on our foundation. I got a chance to uh to meet David Rubenstein. who create a Carlisle group.

56:37 And uh interviewed him for Big Shad, which is my my little Jewish podcast archive that that I have. Oh, David. And David Rosny talked about the rules of how he does philanthropy. So as an example, he talks about like he'll only write a big check for an organization or a foundation or charity where

56:54 I'm gonna get these kinda wrong, but uh effectively it's The project wouldn't start without him? Or the project wouldn't end without him. where he can see the efficacy of the investment in his in ten year period. And it's deeply personal to him.

57:07 And so he sort of puts up these kind of these these the th this rubric and and if it fits those categories he's in he'll he'll give in David Rubens' case he'll give like ten million or hundred million dollars. So I began to ask David. about philanthropy well after the interview happened. Tell me about this and how you look at that as well. Um

57:25 I'm not necessarily sure David Rubinstein is is a mentor per se, but He has helped me shape my own understanding of of philanthropy. So he's sort of one that's but quite famous. But we also have some friends here in Montreal who are not well known. No one knows them. They're very quiet philanthropists.

57:44 But they The way they do it is kind of strange. It's it's all about like Like some people talk about impact investing. they kinda take this entrepreneurial approach to philanthropy, meaning they'll be very precise about what they donate to. So they'll say they'll walk into a hospital and they'll say

57:58 Why is there a lineup here? And the foundation people at the hospital will be like, Well, unfortunately there's only one machine, and this is very popular. This is a cancer screening machine. They'll say, Great, how much is a second machine? They're like It's two million dollars. Okay. Do you have capacity for it? Not really. What do you need? Well, I need a radiologist for it. Well, how much is that? And then these people will sort of go away and they'll come back to the hospital literally a week later, they'll say, Great.

58:21 We figured out that. You need a radiologist, you need a machine, you need a new location. You also need to change some power to sort of for this all to work because you don't have enough power supply here. So we think it's four and a half million dollars. We're gonna go and raise four and a half million dollars for this exact thing, this precise thing. And lo and behold, six months later you walk into this hospital, the machine is there, there's no lineup anymore, and everything is solved. So they're not doing this sort of blanket philanthropy, they're very being very precise. And so we've We've done a we we've been able to kind of find these different people in these different categories and it's

58:52 It's amazing because you get this cheat sheet for anything you want to get good at. I started Djing again recently and I so I began talking to there's this amazing shop here called Moog, M O G Moog Audio. Amazing like legendary music shop in in in the world, but certainly here in Montreal. And so I started going to the shop more often, hanging out there and like listening to the DJs and ended up meeting one of the DJ guy Alex, who runs the shop and asking him like, So how do you think about like when you beat mix, what do you do? Is it eight beat counts or using new technology? How do you think about fading? Um, there's there's something called um stems in Dijing. So you take a song, there are three stems. There's basically the drum bass, like the beat, there's the vocals, and there's the instrumentals. And I was like ha like when I was DJing, we couldn't necessarily identify or isolate stems. I was like, but you seem to be doing that a lot when you're DJing and I listen to your soundcloud stuff. And he's like, Well here's how I do

59:41 You can do this in every category of your life and It doesn't have to be these famous people. It can be a random person you end up meeting at the DJ shop. And it's been it's been amazing for me and Lindsay, it's been amazing for My my own life. But I will say that

1:00:00 Uh A lot of A lot of people try to emulate something like that. And there's this cringe factor. Involved that.

1:00:08 I find that most people can't get over and the cringe factor is often I have to sent a lot of text messages and a lot of emails and a lot of Even now that that you know, I think it's a little bit more. A lot some people know me, I still Th like I have zero cringe in my life. I don't worry about cringe at all. I never feel that way at all. So if there's someone that I really want to get

1:00:28 You know Intro to and start working with and start getting mentorship from the I will like I will go full on and I will never be disrespectful. But I have no issue with rejection whatsoever. And I think that's

1:00:40 the largest blocker of why more people don't create these personal boards of directors. Let's go deeper on that for a second. I I think you hit on a really key point, which is I I kind of think of this as like most people don't want to look like an idiot in the short term to look like a genius in the long term. And because they're unwilling to do something where somebody might say no or uh it might make them look you know, you wanna start skateboarding. Well you you gotta get on a skateboard to actually start skateboarding, but you're gonna look like a fool for the first

1:01:08 few months or maybe weeks or years or whatever, but you're unwilling to do that and so you never get better at these things. I've very high cringe pain tolerance, whatever you want to call it. I have no issue with that whatsoever. I think that there is this This gets easier also with age I find. The older I get, the less I really I really care about that stuff. But yeah, I think most people are not willing to look stupid for a period of time. I think the other thing is that I think about this all from the the concept of like

1:01:35 Entrepreneurship. in my office, uh here here in Montreal, Shafi office, I have the original screen print uh that Ben Francis used to create Gym Shark. It was a gift. It's a super meaningful gift that he gave me. I love it. I have a Hung up my office.

1:01:50 Part of the reason why it's up there is because I think that It's an amazing gift and Jim Shark is this home grown success story on Shopify. It exemplifies everything we stand for. It's incredible. But the other reason I have it up there is because what most people don't know is that that was not than Francis's first company. That Ben Francis actually had a bunch of failed companies before he landed on Gym Shark.

1:02:09 And I think about this idea of this cost of failure, not just from entrepreneurship perspective, but in general. You have to basically figure out. With any anything you're doing, what is the cost of failure here? If the cost of failure is really high, you really have to think about it. It's You have to sort of do a little bit of like the math of is the cost of s is is the benefit of success worth the cost of failure? And some ways it's just not.

1:02:32 But I mean for thirty nine dollars a month you can build a store and it's not a pitch for shop play, but thirty nine dollars you can build a store. If it works, blow it up. If it doesn't work, try something else. S there are still too many people that are apprehensive that that

1:02:46 that don't want to put themselves out there because of this fear of failure. And I've long believed that You know getting really, really comfortable with being uncomfortable.

1:02:57 is magic. It's totally magic. And I wasn't always good at that. I don't think you can be born with that. I think you can learn that. I think you you can learn resilience. But I don't

1:03:09 I don't know anyone I admire who's had success. who has not gone through that period of Making kinda look looking kinda dumb. I don't know if you watch the first interview you've ever done. Me? Oh God, yeah. Look at that. I wouldn't listen to the first I think like twenty or thirty of them.

1:03:27 I wanted to get a a catalogue and then I wanted to listen to them. Sure. And then I I went for like a really long run and I started listening to them and I was like, Oh my God And it's like I should have asked this follow up and why did I phrase it that way? uh like you, I'm incredibly hard on myself. Came back, went through every transcript and like I was like I want to get better at this for everybody else, but Yeah. There is no secret. to why you've

1:03:52 been so successful in my in my view. I've known you now for a number of years. You you simply k out care other people. And I think that out carrying thing supers IQ

1:04:05 EQ Raw talent. Double click on that for a second. I think that I will take some one. It's the reason why

1:04:15 I like entrepreneurs so much that I think entrepreneurs the right entrepreneurs, the best entrepreneurs, they just simply out care other people. They are willing to if you put two people in a room um one person has fifty percent capacity, another person hundred percent capacity, but that hundred percent capacity person is just not caring as much as fifty percent. I think I can help that fifty person Get more skill. I'm not sure I can change their level of ambition.

1:04:39 I think you can change ambition, but I think like sheer Innate. Deep rooted ambition. Uh which Call it Kerrick, whatever whatever nomenclature you want to use.

1:04:50 I think that is a superpower. And it's also the reason why when I meet someone they say, What do you think? I should do with my life. I often ask them what do you do for fun? Because often the what you do for fun question ends up

1:05:05 Turning into I really want to be a fashion designer. And I'm like, You should go be a fashion designer. If they've ever done it. You may not have

1:05:12 The raw skills you will learn those skills, but You seem to really care about this thing. you're probably gonna be good at it. Is there a difference between who cares the most and who wants it more? Or the like how do you see that new one?

1:05:25 In my view. Um Usually high care comes from high intent. Or high. Uh uh.

1:05:32 an elevated level of desire to succeed. I'm trying to teach my kids that right now. I I spent a lot of you know This is kinda weird, but I kinda wish I had kids pre IPO rather than post IPO.

1:05:45 Why. I think Whatever success that I've had and success of of of the things I've been involved with. They're more meaningful to me because obviously I know where I come from, I know how hard it was.

1:06:01 But I also see how Lindsay, how my wife sees my relationship with things that I've done, in particular with Shopify. Lindsay has Great A g a wonderful emotional connection. It's Shopify for Lindsey even my wife is not just a company.

1:06:18 She remembers You know, those early days. She remembers those Like being on top of Tucker's marketplace and the Byward market, uh the office stunk like the buffet restaurant and and struggling. This is pre IP the pre Series A even and and I I like that sh

1:06:35 I love that she knows that. She knows how meaningful is because she she's seen the entire journey. Um My my kids were born in the last Eight years or so. They kind of only know

1:06:46 Mm our life Being pretty good. Post IPO. I don't think that's a secret. financially my my life changed and and

1:06:55 And I don't take it for granted. Bano. I kinda wish they knew what Lindsay and my first apartment looked like in Ottawa, Canada. And how gross it was. It wasn't gross because it was dirty, it was just was a nice bar, but'cause we couldn't afford anything else. And so

1:07:11 What I often what Lindsay often tells me is just like Yeah, the kids didn't see that, but tell them those stories. And so I do I tell those kids I tell my daughter's the stories of those early days and how scary it was. And we didn't know if it was going to succeed or not. And and I want them to see that I think

1:07:25 I don't want them to think any of this came simply because it was fate or just kinda happened or You know, uh I mean luck plays a role here, but This was Sure.

1:07:39 Grit. and willpower and it still is. Um Part of the reason why I like starting these small projects like Big Shot or Firebelly is I I I want the kids to see that.

1:07:50 I want the kids to see this thing that You know, that first episode of Big Shot we did. was it was Charles Braufman. It didn't do very well. I wasn't very good at it. I wasn't a good interviewer. I didn't know what questions to ask. Dave and I were kind of awkward fumbling along together. And Bailey, my eldest, has sort of memorized most of the episode. And now she watches that. She she they love watching Big Shot. They also watched the most recent episode, Bobby Kodak, who built Activision Blizzard. We put that out last week.

1:08:18 And uh And I love watching her see the difference in style and And the articulation. Because I want her to know that like all the things she wants in her life, she can have. But it won't be easy.

1:08:33 No one's gonna give it to her. And it's gonna kinda suck at the beginning. Go a little bit deeper on that because uh you know what came to mind when you were saying that is this conversation I had with Chris Bosch. And the thing about that entire interview that sticks out with me even to this day is that He told me this story about how growing up

1:08:54 They had nothing. And he loved to play the private school kids. Beat them. 'Cause they're so entitled. He's like they had air conditioning. Don't know what it's like to work out in a gym when it's a hundred and ten degrees. Yeah. I have no idea. And I love to go in there and I love to win.

1:09:13 And he then at the end, he sort of like twisted this around. He's like Now my kids are those private school kids. It's really hard. I mean, I don't want to create artificial Scarcity or artificial You know.

1:09:30 I don't want to create things that don't exist for my kids and pretend Like our life is different than it is. This is where Lindsay's really great. Lindsay's a psychotherapist, so she thinks a lot more about this than I do, but she'll often remind me that like it's not what you say, it's what you do, is what they see. And so Yeah, for example, um

1:09:48 We're fortunate to have um some help at the house. But Like daily makes her bet every day. Bailey puts her dishes away. Now that's very different than you know

1:09:57 what Chris Bosch said about like the you know where how he grew up. But there's a certain level of like respect that we show the people that have helped us. There's a certain level of care that we show the people that are around us. I'm not sure that I can invent some sort of some version of poverty for my children. I think that would They would part of why I work hard is on my my

1:10:18 My kids can have You know. Less of that. multi generational trauma that I have felt. Yeah. I want them to be a

1:10:26 grateful and hard working and convic and and have conviction. I want them to work on projects together. I want them to fall on their face when when they haven't done the right thing and I want I want to celebrate them when they work really, really hard. Um The type of school my my my daughters go to now was the type of school that my mom said I could she couldn't afford to send me to.

1:10:48 And that that's one of the reasons why I I I worry about am I doing all the right things? Am I a great great parent? Am I a great father? I I don't know that I am. I I like Yeah, s Sunday is here at Shop, if I We have something called builder son to his? We open up the offices.

1:11:04 It's it done in Montreal and Toronto. So anyone in the city uh that's an entrepreneur can come in and work from here. And I come in almost every Sunday. And I bring I often we'll bring we'll bring the kids, usually I'll bring Bailey with me. And I'll just walk around and I'll talk to people and ask them how they can be helpful and stuff. And I see Bailey watching me do this and she's like well

1:11:23 Like what's that person doing? I was like well, that person's building a Shopify app. And she's like, Well what did he ask? And I was like, Well he asked, you know, once the app is built, how does he get people to use the app? And she said, Well What'd you say? And I said, Well, you know Like make sure the app adds a lot of value and then the first five people that installed it. Like call them and ask them how you can make it better. And if you've made it better and they're happy, ask them to write a review and

1:11:43 And so I'm beginning to think the parenting is not that complicated that we complicate it. We try all these devices and t and t and and and these techniques and these I programs and all these sort of things, but ultimately

1:11:58 They're just watching us. And if and and they're going to they're going to copy and they're gonna emulate the behavior they see from us. And if we're respectful, they're gonna be respectful. And if we're hard working, they're gonna be hardworking. I think it's part of that. back to the family model of how you do anything is how you do everything. I don't actually care what my kids end up doing professionally, whether they're entrepreneurs or they're

1:12:22 musicians or their You know, they're they're trait they they have a they have a trade that they work on. I just want them to have intentionality. I don't want them to do something just because Well, this is kind of where life brought me.

1:12:35 I hate that. The opposite of how you do anything is how you do everything is this other term that I hate. I hate when anyone says it which is it is what it is. I don't believe that to be true. I hate that expression. It is what it is. What does it even mean? It is what it is. It means that like somehow you were just this thing happened, you're just accepting it. You can change your own They you can change your own life. You can change everything about everything around you.

1:12:58 I want my kids to see that that is not the way to live, that living with great intentionality is important and Yeah. Jury still out on that. We'll see what what how how they turn out. But so far they're pretty good kids. I think you're you're really hard on yourself. What does high agency mean to you?

1:13:17 I don't think you have to have the glory without the the high agency. Meaning I like people that take deep responsibility for things. This idea. Back to expressions that I hate. Well, that's not my job. That is

1:13:30 Expression I loathe. Especially like in a in a in a setting of a company. Um I I just I don't believe that. I don't think that's and and and frankly at any stage of company.

1:13:40 I mean, there's sometimes where like that literally is someone else's job. I get that. But high agency is someone that sees a problem and says, I'm gonna fix it and then fixes it themselves. That they take they put themselves in in into the role of single threaded owner.

1:13:56 responsible person. I take high agency in everything that I have. It's actually a great term. I don't I I shouldn't think about that term that often. I love that term. I think The people I admire most all have high agency.

1:14:10 They see something. They Take responsibility for it. Which means that if it goes well, it's up it's it's their win.

1:14:18 It doesn't go well. It's their loss. But They were able to They have the levers in their hand. They're able to

1:14:27 Maneuver those levers. However they best see fit. And they're willing to accept The consequences Of those results. funny anecdote tying together parenting and

1:14:39 Uh it's not my job which triggered this memory. I mean, I once asked my kids, I think they were seven and eight at the time. I was like, Okay, go clean the bathrooms in the house. Then they knew how to do it. So asking them Seemed appropriate.

1:14:53 And my eight year old looked at me and he's like Uh that's not my job. Tess, who is uh You know, the lady who cleaned our house every couple weeks, he's like, That's Tess's job. And I remember just sitting there for like a brief second and I was like, What do I do in this situation?

1:15:12 So I like picked up my phone, I called Tess. And I said Tuss, uh you don't have to come in tomorrow. Don't worry about it. You're gonna get paid. And the kids have volunteered to do all of your all of the stuff that you normally do for us. Amazing. And so I made this list and it was like long. And I was like you can't do any iPad, no movies, no anything until this list is completed. Guess what? No, it is your job. And not once since that day have they ever pushed back when I asked them to do anything around the house or help out. They're like, No problem. Yeah, of course. I think it's

1:15:47 Look, and and it's not that your your son was saying something wrong. No, he actually thought it was. A hundred percent. Which is why again, like it it it's this crazy paradox, like we we work so hard to give our kids these great these great lives and make their lives better, but ultimately we don't want to deprive them from the things that actually will give them their own satisfaction later on. I have a uh you know, uh without sort of naming names, I I have uh Two two people that are c are close to me that are both third generation

1:16:14 kind of big families, meaning, you know. Each of their parents, I think, were billionaires. Okay, very wealthy people. Um And

1:16:22 In both cases, so I know the third gen in both cases. One of them. is one of the hardest working people I know. The other one Is not at all.

1:16:33 like the opposite. Super laid back and they're both very happy people. They're both wonderful people. But it's fascinating to me. How Both of them are third gen. Yeah.

1:16:45 Completely different. And it's all about the values they set. One really wants to prove that He was able to You know, he benefited from the pasture generations But

1:16:59 Making his own mark is deeply important to him because he wants to have personal meaning, personal accomplishment. The other one is like look I basically wanted lottery. So I'm gonna I'm gonna enjoy life more than Anybody else because like I don't even know how this happened, but I'm gonna enjoy it.

1:17:16 Neither of them are wrong or right. But I'm fascinated by How parenting translating and translate into meaning and conviction. I think a lot about that. I don't know. I definitely I'm a little ahead of you with the kids' ages, but I definitely do not have any answers to that. One of the

1:17:34 Only pieces of advice Charlie Munger Give me about parenting over dinner once was The parents the try to artificially impose a different lifestyle on their kids. Then they are living.

1:17:48 Uh and he gave an extreme example of a guy getting like chauffeured to work with a driver and then telling his kids to get a very murder version of this. Oh McDonald's, right? And he said that that does nothing but cause resentment. Yeah. Because then again, y now you're creating something artificial. It's not it's not it's not real. Yeah. I want them you know, I I want them to I want it to be real. I see it actually. I I set up my my new DJ booth. Um In my house.

1:18:13 And every time I DJ I can almost count it like within thirty seconds, both kids will come up and say, I want to DJ too. Amazing. I could have bought them DJ equipment for themselves. That's sort of a I don't know. Like a rich dad thing to do. Like I'm DJing, I got you D you comment. No, instead

1:18:28 They see how much fun I'm having DG and I love DJing. I broke I put it on Instagram stories every Sunday, uh a couple different mixes that I do. But they watch how much fun I have and then they want to do it. And now they're asking their Did you come in? Of course, my answer is, Well, you should save your money. Like you can do chores and your birthday money and all that, and eventually you can save your money. And I will go with you to the store. We'll buy we might need equipment for you. But I never would have been able to

1:18:54 Um to inspire them to think about this thing called DJing and music. If I was Just throwing it at them.

1:19:04 Rather by showing them how much I enjoy it. They seem to gravitate to it way more. I love that. Yeah. I wanna come back to something we talked about earlier in terms of trying to be great and intentional at everything you do, which means you have to pick and choose what you do.

1:19:19 that you've talked about in the past. We've never talked about, but you've talked about in the past is sort of your calendar management system for prioritization. And I often had this theory before I heard your story and I People Would

1:19:37 When I Ran a team. Uh, for the government people would tell me their priorities and I'd be like, Show me your calendar. Don't don't tell me your priorities, show me your calendar. Um

1:19:47 Talk to me about how you use that to set priorities and then audit that you're spending time on the right things. Well the audit's the easy one because I um I'm I'm fairly compulsive about auditing my calendar once a quarter. I'm gonna do that. with my team here at Shopify I'll still do with with Lindsay with my wife. So like Lindsay is also

1:20:05 deeply involved in sort of in in in diarising my priorities. I calendar everything. A calendar. This interview we're doing together.

1:20:14 I calendar what I'm gonna do between now and Our dinner tonight. I calendar our dinner tonight. Um I find that putting everything into my calendar, even though

1:20:25 s sounds ridiculous to have like walk with wife. Or Um meditation. I want to meditate more.

1:20:33 I I I I have anxiety. Um I've managed it really well, but part of how I manage is through meditation. Show me your you you want to see my priorities, show my calendar. Every morning. There's a calendar I I do eight minutes a morning. There's calendar

1:20:48 um reminder about meditation. It's in the calendar. It's It's and it's permanent. It's always in there. It's been there for years. So I think most people use their calendar. Professionally.

1:20:59 But they don't want to use it personally. It almost feels I don't know, it it it it feels icky to them or it feels too overly prescriptive and and formal It's not me. Everything is in there. It's really, really important. Years ago someone sent me the Paul Graham

1:21:15 Makers versus managers. Time. Which effectively is that Paul Graham describes it as that he's got these blocks called managers time, like they're thirty minute blocks. Then he has makers' times, which are a lot longer for deeper thinking times. So I I I do that quite a bit and I try to kind of bundle my my my meeting days.

1:21:33 on certain days, usually Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, and then more of my like my maker days, Tuesdays and Thursdays, where I can have long form blocks of time to do thinking, to do writing, if I'm writing a speech or I'm now preparing for Shopify Summit, which will bring the whole team together after write my keynote. I'm just I I I'm intentional about that stuff. I don't think there's any other way to do it. What I also find is that I color code everything. And so what I can do by color coding everything is that I can see like Um, last night Lindsay and I had dinner with another couple. It was really great, but that that was color coding purple. Um sort of social dinners.

1:22:05 And when I'm looking on a Sunday night review of my week and I see a lot of those social dinners I'm like, I think this week is a little too heavy. And so now I can sort of adjust. Okay, like I'm okay to have one social dinner during the week. I can have two or three of those. I'll just like Like I need to I need to preserve my own energies. as well.

1:22:22 The cover coding thing is really helpful because you can see it visually that like where am I blo where is my time going? Jesse Itzler. I'm here Jesse. He's the founder of Marquee Jet. Um he's married to Sarah Blakely, who created Spanks. But I I did um an endurance race that he created called twenty nine twenty nine. It's called Everesting. Effectively you There's like twelve of them, but you you climb these mountains and you emulate climbing Ever Mount Everest, which is twenty nine nine thousand twenty nine feet. Yeah.

1:22:49 And I did the Eversting race last September. I'm doing it again this year. uh in Mont Trembloc. And so I got a chance to meet Jesse and spend some time with him and also kind of I now follow him on on social media. And he's got this thing called the big ass calendar. It's literally a big ass calendar.

1:23:03 And part of the reason why it it's actually sells it on Shopify it's pretty cool. But the reason why he does it is because it's in his office on the wall and he can see literally three hundred and sixty five days everything visually. And what he starts doing, which which I I really love, and I've tried this a little bit, although I don't have it on printed out. is he'll start the year by saying, Okay, what are the most important things? So we'll put in like s like school graduations or birthdays or earnings calls or whatever it is is important to him. And then he'll add to okay, trips.

1:23:31 Add the trips in. And once you actually have everything visually in front of you, now you're able to sort of take a step back and say like Okay, now you see my calendar, do you see my priorities? If I wanna if I wanna get better at like running Where's the running stuff in there? If it's if it's sporadic, it's obviously not a priority. And there is this

1:23:50 You know. I think lying to yourself is like is kind of insane. That that's really where stress comes from, I find. I think that stressing stress like comes from like when like fundamentally your mind and like your body like are just not aligned very well. And when you look at something and you keep saying, I'm really gonna get into tennis in twenty twenty six, and you're looking at your calendar and there's like not much tennis on it. You're like

1:24:12 Well obviously it's bullshit. Like I'm lying to myself. It's not that important. And I I think the calendar and especially like the great part about a digital calendar is you have it always on you. It's always synced everywhere, your iPad, your desktop, your laptop, your phone. You have it everywhere available to you, you can add people to it as well. It just makes everything so much easier. Now. Now for the downside.

1:24:31 It can also Be a burden. I'm taking the the kids. Um, it's a long weekend here. And I'm taking the kids uh and Lindsay and I and the kids are going to New York this weekend. And we want to go see.

1:24:43 Broadway shows and like we're huge foodies, we're gonna have some great restaurants. uh Taylor Smith's new restaurant favorite restaurant is going to go to corner store and wanna go there and And my wife and I like I wanna do a spin class and all that. So if you were to look at my New York calendar coming up for this weekend. You would look at me like dude.

1:25:01 Like You're missing out on life. There's no room for serendipity. There's no room for you just getting lost in Central Park. There's no room for you just turning down the wrong street in Soho and finding a really cool boutique and a great sneaker shop. There's no room for, you know, I don't know, your kids like you taking a nap randomly.

1:25:21 That's true. That's not me. I'm not the Sobratic guy. I'm not the Seripty guy. I know who I am. I'm the type of person that wants to see my calendar for the next four days and be like, it's all on there. Because that's what gives me joy. And for other people, they would find it to be Completely anxiety inducing.

1:25:38 But That's not Who I am. So I think being honest about the types of things that like you're into and and how you want to live your life and then reflecting it and manifesting it in a way that like actually allows you to create these guardrails is super, super helpful.

1:25:53 I appreciate that as a calendar. Yeah. I I don't calendar sort of like go for a coffee, but You know, every morning nine to twelve is usually block off, there's no meetings. I tend to schedule things around energy. So like things I don't appreciate or like doing as much. tend to go in the afternoon when I'm lower energy than in the morning.

1:26:13 I'm glad we're recording this in the afternoon. Yeah. That's not what I meant. I mean like lawyers or accountants or like reviewing things, you know, th those aren't high energy tasks for me and But I've never thought about sort of like starting the year and putting in the most important dates first. Uh, I don't really use color coding to the extent that I probably should. And this helps on the visual side of it. We're like why is there so much green this week? You're like, what's green? Oh yeah, green is like whatever. You know, uh

1:26:41 Uh extracurricular like was too much green, like You know. I I I c it something's wrong here. It just allows you to just have the like holy shit moment. Something is off here. There's no balance here.

1:26:52 for me my calendar needs to look like a rainbow. If it looks like a rainbow, I know that I have this balance Like that I'm I myself am looking for. I love that. I wanna come to AI and how it's impacting the workforce that you guys have, how it's impacting other things. But let's start with

1:27:09 Toby put out a memo. And we've talked about this sort of like texting and so the memo came out and He he put it out there. He said, Basically if you're not AI by default, you're in a lot of trouble. Yep. Talk to me about that. He actually said something slightly different, which he said that if you were not using AI reflexively. Which is a very interesting term to use.

1:27:30 Right. By default is one thing reflexively is different, meaning In your jobs, everyone that's listening and watching When you have a problem You're working on a challenge, uh project. Are you reflexively thinking about

1:27:43 What tool exists right now that I can pull down to help me do my job better? And that's I mean, the that memo obviously got leaked. It was an internal memo that he sent to the whole team. And he's done this before. I mean, you know, historic I guess. Quasi famously. He did a memo. About Shopify Mobile.

1:28:00 that like we were still living kind of in like the desktop world. And it was clear that e commerce in particular was moving more to a mobile device, then more traffic was coming and but Shabu was still building kind of in this like web browser based you know, desktop world. And so you wrote this you run a memo to the company and eventually it also got leaked. So uh maybe the story here is that a lot of things when you're a big company g get getting leaked. But

1:28:22 It was an important memory'cause it was a reminder to the company that like Look, this isn't just some random new tool. This isn't new type of programming language. This is A fundamental paradigm shift in the way we all work. And whether you are

1:28:37 a storyteller where before I'm preparing for something uh and I'm like, hey, I just I wanna check a couple of things like here are the the stats that I have. I can throw it into I like to use perplexity or um I actually really love Claude for projects on personal abuse Claude, but for Claude what I do is I have like a I have a project for like health and wellness. So every blood test I have I upload there. Actually Toby kind of showed me how to like how to create these projects in a in a really interesting way that has these great triggers. And so something comes in over email from my doctor, blood test I put it in there. Um, or I'll have one around speaking. So I've uploaded every one of my transcripts of speaking. And so I can write something and I can put it into Claude and I can say

1:29:15 From a tone perspective, does this sound like me? Like what parts of this doesn't doesn't you know, doesn't it feel like my other talks, or have I told the story before? It's this amazing tool. He w what what he does so well is Like he is the He's the Overton window shifter.

1:29:33 And he like he kicks that window hard. And so he just wanted to make sure that a shop if I if you work here you are within the like the origin window of AI like being reflexive. is deeply met in the culture. Something else happened. Um

1:29:48 In February of of this year. I had our um We did our Q forwardings call. So Jeff and I are CFO were on the earnings call.

1:29:57 And then There were a bunch of reports, the analyst reports coming after the running's call and stuff. I think we have like forty six or forty seven analysts covering Shopify. And a bunch of the reports mentioned. On the actually criticized me for saying and also we were surprised that Hartley did not talk more about AI.

1:30:15 And I was like this is weird, like what like Two or three reports came out like that. I was like, this is strange. So I I I listened to the call again. And I listened to a lot of other calls too. What I realized was I get it. All these other companies that were ported around the same time as we did. They basically spend fifty percent of the call talking about AI. AR are AI investments.

1:30:33 It was like If you sort of word clouded The ordering's call scripts. by far AI would have been the largest cloud. And it wasn't for us. It was I I mentioned I talked about Shopify magic and all that.

1:30:47 And It it dawned on me that The reason that We were I was criticized, Rich. We were criticized for this. Was that like I think a lot of companies are very hand wavy about AI. Like

1:31:01 AI is going to change our company and and it's going to like, you know, uh It's like that poster of like an eagle with leadership underneath and people like, What's our culture? It's that poster. No, that's not like That's a stupid poster. Culture is like what people do, how people feel, what what happens when no one's watching. What is what does the team do? That's real culture. Putting a sign up is is is completely superficial nonsense. Well, a lot of companies are sort of talking to the eye right now in a similar sort of superficial con like nonsense kind of way.

1:31:32 Ultimately If you think about the mission of Shopify, it's We wanna create more entrepreneurs. We wanna make entrepreneurship more accessible. We want more people to use it to Whatever their version of success is. May maybe it's to be the youngest billionaire in the UK like Ben Francis and Gymshark, or maybe it's just to afford, you know, hockey equipment.

1:31:51 But we think that entrepreneurship allows anyone to do that. It's the great equalizer. The Unfair advantage. That

1:32:01 Like Unfair. like big unfair advantage that large companies have over small companies is headcount. That they have a lot of people. And so they have a lot of people doing a lot of different jobs.

1:32:15 As easy as we've made entrepreneurship, there's still that There's still a resource constraint if you are a one man or one woman or a one person operation. You don't have a lot of different teams. What we think is so fundamentally game changing and And

1:32:34 mind blowing about AI is that We are actually one of the companies I think that's best position to utilize it to create this like step function advantage for the people that use shop, especially the small businesses. This idea that we don't have an AI product or rather AI is built in All across Shopify.

1:32:53 I think it's Абсолютні Incredible. Um On big shot, I interviewed Mickey.

1:32:59 Mickeyster ran the gap for twenty years. Do you know Mickey? Yeah. Have you had him on the show? Yeah. Okay. Amazing guy, as you know he can tell stories. Forever. Uh so Mickey told me that when he was at the Gap, the Gap had these like massive merchandising teams and product photography teams. And as he was telling me this The first thing I thought about was

1:33:19 Oh my god. If you compare Mickey Trucks for running the gap. Yeah. nineteen ninety seven, nineteen ninety eight. Do billions of dollars.

1:33:29 A one. operation at their mom's kitchen table right now on Shopify. Who needs to write a product description? Who needs to do product photography?

1:33:38 I suspect that today they can have A higher converting, a higher a h a highly optimized or higher optimized Part description and a better Product photography taken.

1:33:50 than Mickey's three in a person team. That to me is like The ultimate Like that's why AI matters to Shopify. It's not about the hand wavy

1:34:00 All this stuff and earnings call word. It's about Can we actually Even further bend. Like the learning curve.

1:34:10 and the baron entry into entrepreneurship, nothing quite does this like AI does. Now it doesn't mean you can effectively set it like set it and forget it, but it just means that it's gonna be a huge mass advantage. And I think the way that we're doing it is not simply by having one AI product, but rather literally embedding it across all of Shopify. I think that's going to be From a trajectory perspective, you will see a pre and a post trajectory of business growth. Particularly small business growth.

1:34:38 Because of AI. relative to almost every other technology that came out. I mean it is It is so substantially Valuable. For small teams

1:34:49 Because it it it puts so much of their It gives them so many more resources in a way that they would never have unless they had bigger teams. And ultimately, if you think about like as a consumer, you are buying a t shirt, you want to buy the very, very best t shirt, you don't really care if the t shirt company has three hundred people or three people, you care about the t shirt itself. But unfortunately, that three hundred person company historically was able to get in front of more customers because they had merchandising teams and marketing teams and product photography teams and all types of other teams. But now the three person team can actually do

1:35:20 As much as a three hundred person. In fact, maybe they can do it better. And I think that is going to be remarkable. So I think from a um I think sh From a Shopify perspective, I think our merchants will get a lot better. uh and grow a lot faster because of it.

1:35:34 But I think the companies that are able to adopt and this is really the like the crux of the like everyone was surprised by that memo that Toby sent out. We were not. Like most people at Shopify were not surprised by that. It was the most Toby memo. It was like, I want to be clear, everyone's talking about AI, but what does it really mean? It means that if you work at Shopify, the expectation is that you use it reflexively. The expectation is before you go and try to hire an uh another person for your team, you ask yourself and you you test whether or not some sort of AI tool can actually do it. Better for you. That's what you should be doing.

1:36:04 I mean the the teams and the companies that embrace that are gonna be far more successful than ones that Adopt it. With some You know.

1:36:14 mediocre energy. I was talking to my kids the other day and it was like you have a thousand employees at your fingertips. Yes. And they were like, What do you mean? I was like, All these GPUs, they work for you. Yes. They do exactly what you asked them to do, and they do it better for twenty bucks. In a lot of ways than most humans do at this point. And especially with it.

1:36:34 Different models coming out and evolving. It it's fascinating to me. What do you think the impact will be on Shopify in five years, like internally, not for your merchants, but like Do you need ten thousand employees? Do you need like how does this change the The dynamic.

1:36:51 I mean in terms of the size of company we I I think the size of our company right now and the shape of our company right now is is is is it's really good. Like we are very happy with the size. It means we can do more with with with the same amount of people. It means we can go into new areas. It means we can build faster. I think Not just for Shopify, but I think the companies that are going to be that are going to embrace it, not utilize it, but truly embrace it and make it part of their daily flow.

1:37:13 I mean look, we talked about schedules and and and and and prioritization just before. Um once a quarter when I have time I I go and look through my calendar. I can now create a very simple, like agentic tool that basically looks at my calendar every week and on Sunday it says, dude, you got too many social things, or dude, you got too many one on one meetings, or like whatever it is. I can be all the things that I want to do in my life. I think can be made better for that. Um, one of my mentors is a guy named Aldo Ben Sadon. Aldo's eighty s five years old. Um he was um A Moroccan immigrant to Canada.

1:37:46 He built elder shoes. Um he's you know, he's he's built a multi billion dollar company. And um Alden and I were giving a talk together. Um at uh he just gave a bunch of money to McGill to create the the Benson School of Retail.

1:37:58 uh faculty of retail at McGill, which is uh I'm involved with a really, really cool faculty. And um We're on stage and I said to Aldo, I'm sort of like Aldo's kind of an old school guy and I said, Aldo, what do you think of AI? And I was kind of like it's a bit of a joke, it's kind of poking fun of like the young guy, like the young retail guy poking the old retail guy. And Alder without skimming a beat says. It's like having a best friend in your pocket.

1:38:21 This is an eighty five year old Matt. He's seen You know, he's seen everything. He's seen all new technology for the last, you know It and have decades. But even the fact that he can appreciate How much

1:38:33 leverage you get with this new technology. I think I think is amazing. So I think it'll make us move faster. I think it'll allow us to build stuff with smaller teams. I think it'll allow our merchants to make better decisions. I I think you're going to see you know, I'm I'm I'm blown away

1:38:49 Even pre kind of some of these large language models and AI tools coming out in the last four or five years. I've been I've I I found it to be remarkable that these companies have started in two thousand fourteen have become billion dollar companies in the last ten or eleven years.

1:39:05 Typically business doesn't happen like that. It took decades to become hegemonic, to become the leader in your category. And now you have Um companies like I don't know what's a good viore. Aloyoga.

1:39:17 These companies didn't exist a decade ago and now they're absolutely unequivocal category leaders. It's wild. Took him like less than ten years. Figs. Completely disrupted Trina and Heather completely disrupted the hospital scrub industry. You walk in any hospital in North America, maybe in the world. And you look around and see like What most

1:39:36 doctors are wearing or nurses are wearing, it's figs. That didn't exist a decade ago and now they're publicly traded multi billion dollar company. So I've already been It's been astonishing for me to watch from this perspective. Shop play basically runs about twelve percent of all US e commerce. So if you were to think about like Just in terms of size wise, like

1:39:56 We're like the second largest checkered on the internet. I in the US at least, but in other countries maybe even more so than that. The trajectory of business growth has been so remarkable so fast. ten years you go from an idea to a multi billion dollar publicly traded company. Now you add on this like layer of AI, which means you can make better decisions faster. You can make smaller teams way more productive.

1:40:19 I think you're gonna have another stub function. Like I think that you will have this incredible hockey stick curve of businesses that grow from zero to a hundred million dollars in GMV inside of three years instead of instead of inside of like ten years. And I mean

1:40:35 I pray at the altar of entrepreneurship. And there's been a couple of things over the last You know. fifty years that has made it much better. Obviously the internet's made it much better. Obviously things like Shopify has made it much better. But I think like this new Air up.

1:40:49 Where you have all these things stacked with AI. Um, it is the golden age of entrepreneurship and I'm I'm here for it. I think a lot of people our age, our in more trouble than they realize if they're not using it.

1:41:02 And I say this'cause I had dinner with a few friends the other night and and the subject came up and I was like, How is everybody using AI? Like I'm always interested in how other people like you were talking about sort of like putting your blood test results in a project and Clot, and I'm like, I'm trying to learn from other people. And almost all of them were like oh it hallucinates so I l I like don't use it very much. And I'm just like Wow, like that's and then they're like what are you doing with it? And like I go on for like ten minutes, right? Like I'm

1:41:29 I'm coding. I've haven't done that in like ten years. I'm doing all these things with it and they're just like, Wow. I mean you can literally generate a Python script right now in a matter of thirty seconds with open AI, right now. Yeah. You can generate, you can build an app. In a matter of like I mean

1:41:45 Back to what you just said. Um That reaction of I tried it once, it hallucinated. I think one of the things that you have to have

1:41:54 If you're going to be successful in this new era of Business And And actually in in any in any era with all the new technology is

1:42:04 You have to be a techno optimist. You have to believe that things are getting so good at such a quick pace that it doesn't matter that it hallucinated, that the next time you use it, it probably won't hallucinate. And I think if you get stuck in this trap of it hallucinated once, therefore I now have scar tissue, I'm not gonna use it. You're going to fall behind. It's one of the reasons why

1:42:24 One of my mentors has I think one of the reasons he spends time with me is he loves hanging with people younger than him. Much younger than him. I'm I'm Forty, thirty years younger than him. Uh and he used to run one of the largest companies in Canada. He's an amazing man. And I always noticed that that like he's always hanging out with younger people. And I had someone I said, You seem to like, you know, uh, you seem to like hanging out with with younger people. Is it because you guys teach me stuff. He's like, My friends don't teach me as much. He's my friends are in their sixties and seventies. We talk about golf, we talk about whiskey or wine, whatever. But when I hang out with you, Hartley, you tell me about like the new DJ equipment and how like it's all powered by AI and you tell me about this new stuff and and then he goes one step further. He's like and he also has friends that are in their twenties and they tell me about all types of new technology and and

1:43:05 I think there is this There's something maybe this is one of the great parts, but but Like one of the advantages of having kids is you see how they're interacting. You see what they're doing. Um You know, I I sent an a note over to David, who's a CO of Roblox. And I was just explaining them that the way my kids use Roblox is actually

1:43:23 Yes, they're playing a game. But rather the game is almost passively in the background. They're having a conversation. And rather than looking at each other, they're looking at this game together and kinda playing. But the actual in in at least for my kids who are you know, who's uh Bailey to eight years old, Roblox for her

1:43:40 It's simply a central chat room. Yep. It is not actually about the game itself. And rather than staring at the person's face, on screen as being the main focal point. Yeah.

1:43:51 Yeah, the face is kind of in the bottom right corner. The main focal point is then in some random game. And and rather, you know, it's maybe and David of course knows this, but It's like what you've created is like A social network. And like you call it a you know game ecosystem and all that, but

1:44:08 watching how people are using this technology is is remarkable. And uh It's I think if you are a techno optimist and you're paying attention to all these things that are happening, it is tough not to be incredibly optimistic about like where we are and the world we're living in right now. It's It's amazing. I could go on for another couple of hours. I think this is a probably a good moment to sort of wrap this up. We always end with the same question. Uh, which is what a success for you.

1:44:34 I think about this term I mentioned a few times life's work. I think about this term joie de vie, which is joy of life, which is a beautiful French term that is You know, or t for me, like Montreal is the joie de vivre capital. Um

1:44:49 I want more of those things in my life. I want to do more of my life's work. I want to have more joie de vivre in my life. And I don't want to I don't want to sacrifice Other those things. Um

1:45:01 I think that's what success looks like. The the The harmonization of joie de vive. And life's work. Would be Um

1:45:10 That would make me successful, I think. That's a beautiful answer. And we'll have to do part two because I got a million more questions. Thank you, Sharon. I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening and learning with us. Be sure to sign up for my free weekly newsletter at fs.blog slash newsletter. The Farnum Street website is also where you can get more info on our membership program. Which includes access to episode transcripts, my repository, ad free episodes, and more. Follow myself and Farnum Street on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Plus you can watch full episodes on our YouTube channel. If you like what we're doing here, leaving a rating and review would mean the world. And if you really like us, sharing with a friend is the best way to grow this community.

1:45:51 Until next time.

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