Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify)

0:00 Your podcast is a podcast by a builder for other builders. Here's the most interesting question I think people can ask builders. What is your energy source? My energy source is dissatisfaction with status quo. Like so many books are about dis Technology leading to dystopia? Like no one who really thinks about this would want to be born into a world twenty years before today. I think today is the dystopia of the future. It behooves us to try to build the kinds of problems that lead in towards progress. There's a couple quotes along these lines I've seen that describe the way you think about this stuff. If most people are doing it a certain way, I by default don't want to do it that way. in the world that exists, which is that business people dress in suit and tie. They are speaking much more sophisticated than I do, usually without an accent. They usually stick and show dramatically at the chart that is behind them. How much is that a static? overlap with our performance. Pessimism sounds extremely sophisticated. Optimism always sounds dumb, or at least naive. The most powerful, unquantifiable things.

1:01 In the word of business are fun and delight. I don't know of any other company that operates where the founder has this hundred year vision of where the product needs to go and working backwards from that. I I talk about look in the future and then think backwards uh a lot, right? Like it's like what would we want to have done? twenty years ago on this. We have very long term plans. At hundred years you can't talk about the sort of software project, but you can't talk about the mission itself. What are the things that will survive? For 80 years when I left on this particular timeframe. Like entrepreneurship is just precious. Shopify exists basically to make entrepreneurship more common. Is there anything you want to leave listeners with? I really, really, really think that there is not a single person on this planet who is even close to being at their maximum potential. Reminding people of their own potential. Constantly is actually a wonderful thing to do.

1:53 Today my guest is Toby Ludcut. Toby is a man who needs no introduction. So I'm gonna keep this very short and get you right to this jam packed conversation. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously.

2:12 With that, I bring you Toby Lutka. This episode is brought to you by Cinch, the customer communications cloud. Here's the thing about digital customer communications. Whether you're sending marketing campaigns, verification codes, or account alerts, you need them to reach users reliably. That's where Cinch comes in.

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4:20 Tobi, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast. I'm glad to be here. I'm excited for our conversation. I've listened to so many of your other interviews. I've talked to a bunch of people that work for you. I wanna try to do something a little different. Yeah.

4:33 There's a couple of themes. There's basically two themes that emerg over and over and over as I've listened to you share advice and interview and in talking to people that work for you. One is uh thinking from first principles. The other is Maximizing human potential. I'm just gonna plant these seeds for now. I'm gonna not ask about these directly. I'm gonna come at these from the side with the many questions that I have for you.

4:54 And The first question I have is something that I've heard people describe. Not job if I call the Toby Tornado. Oh wow. Okay. That's a start.

5:04 I like it. What is the Toby Tornado? Uh, Toby Tornado, I would say, is like A whole lot of uh change management or uh a conversation or conflict, uh or um Uh we'll talk compressed into a very short time frame.

5:19 I I I see something, it doesn't sound uh like it's not good. I have a conversation. If that isn't steel man, and it's like I I like I either learn something very quickly about hey, yeah, I might I I need to update my priors, or Cool, let's do it differently. A project might be um stopped. And um uh we we we uh get back together in a room and when um we start a new version of a product and everyone who's currently on the team is no longer um of of that particular project.

5:46 is no longer on the project, but they have the founders of the next version, which is built differently. And that might be um bit whiplishy for people. But it's also something that like I mean. I I mean I I certainly hope that's uh true with certainly what people tell me is also what they appreciate about a company, right? Like it's it's kind of like What is best ends up mattering a lot, and so Yeah. Basically it's you going into chat room being like

6:10 Hey with this we're gonna end this project. Let's try it something else because you've discovered or realize this is a bad idea. What I see when I see this is Some people complain about this practice of like, Oh, Toby Kill kills a project we've been working on. Uh, my lenses you realize we're just wasting time on this thing that is not gonna work.

6:28 And we shouldn't do it. Is there anything there along those lines? No this is everything. It's like Okay, people Again, once I imagine something might be Not the right thing to work on.

6:39 Um I've a Incorrect, at which point this is super important better understand why. Or I'm correct, at which point it's super unfair for letting people work on something that isn't going to make it. There's a third way, which is like I could also ignore it, but that's like an abjection of my CO and founder responsibility that I'm like absolutely not willing to make. So that's just not a That's not that's not a path forward, right?

7:01 I see valid. I I it's I I understand that's what a lot of people choose to do. Um So yeah, like um compressing time is important and um You know, like I I I I think uh we we have fairly limited time in our careers, right? Like and um Well, careers are not that long. At least it it's

7:20 You know, if you're if you're lucky you have forty years in industry, um Um most people spend more time in school and then like maybe leave later if I Uh if if if if I'm so lucky that I can. So it it's not even bad. I think you want to m do the maximum amount of things you can be proud of at the end of your career. When you look back, you want to be saying, like, hey, holy shit, we we shipped this thing, which was absolutely like an incredible contribution to a mission I cared about at a company that uh was full of other people who cared as much as I did.

7:49 um and probably now uh uh at my vintage uh sitting and looking back and also are very proud of looking and and maybe even thinking of working with me and being uh really, really glad that we uh spend time on projects together. Um and so it's like um Yeah, none of this happens if like everyone's sort of optimizing a thing that probably shouldn't be there, right? So and uh, you know, therefore I think it's the better thing to do. There's another example along these lines. And by the way, I love this um way of describing of compressing it in time to just make a decision and not

8:21 mm focus on making it come across the most kind, nicest kind of sweetest way. Something else I heard along these lines is just when Uh when you give Feedback.

8:32 Uh the way that you think it could be, or as good as it could be. It's often very direct and often hard to hear. And again, to me this comes across as you're trying to maximize their potential. You're trying to

8:44 uh push them to do something better. Is there anything there that you think is a way of approaching feedback? I really, really, really think that there is not a single person on this planet who is even close to um uh being at their maximum potential.

9:00 Like I I just think everyone is like way, way, way, way, way better than very fake. And and the reason why we're not performing at this level is a series of ideas, maybe certain approaches for cultivating our skills and our crafts that have not yet discovered been discovered and therefore we could not take advantage of them. Very often it's honestly just like

9:20 It's an environment that just narrows the focus on fairly unambitious things, at which point you get stuck competing with literally everyone else in the world because everyone's unambitious. And so Um I have found that reminding people of their own potential

9:36 Constantly is actually a wonderful thing to do. Um And I I and I have a history of being right about uh people's potential more than they are themselves. Like and um Um now

9:49 In a way this dooms me. fairly often to be disappointed, right, you know, in Myself. My my uh by the way, I'm talking about myself here too. Like I I I I I think I have way more potential than what I uh bring to bear and I I I hate that. So like I'm trying to cultivate the skills that I need for tomorrow. And um uh um and and constantly challenge myself. But

10:09 Like I I'm harder on myself than on anyone else. And then I'm uh by some discount rate, um uh act equally to the people around me. Um Especially the ones which are so obviously are f uh brilliant. And so Um spending time and longer time in careers with uh people and then holding them to a high standard.

10:29 Um means But they accomplish very often things that just they didn't imagine they could. And uh it it's it's to me, this is the most wonderful thing to see. And frankly, this is like a fruit line for all of my career because this is my product is That I I want my product to cause people to be more successful than they thought they could, and in fact become more ambitious about what they are building with their online stores. um and their businesses than they actually initially set out to do.'Cause something like this happened to me, right? Like I started a snowbot store at some point. I I didn't set out to build Shopify. I built Shopify because

11:03 Um If you are committed to following your curiosity as to the next step. And optimize for maximum amount of learning when you choose these steps. It it it takes you from one place to another and you actually realise

11:17 The world's full of lies about human potential and and and progress. And Maybe they're not. Maybe people are not malicious about it, but they're definitely confused about it. Like school teaches you that you have to learn This particular piece of math in this twelve month period. And it doesn't matter how

11:36 much you understand it, it's like the outcome can be variable and we'll grade you on a variable outcome for a fixed amount of time. Which like has nothing to do with anything I've ever seen or learned or see uh like witnessed about um how to actually learn things. You you you um follow that Fred. And you just find um

11:56 But um There is no speed limit for personal growth. And just Um I I I I find that uh like like in a way Shopify has been an wonderful Um

12:08 Experimental lab for this sort of conviction. And um Um uh I I've I've just seen this to come um to to be true. And of course Hearing from someone that you respect that hey, uh like I think

12:23 You had it in you to do this thing. Like significantly better because I think you You probably saw Fairly early in the project. This sort of

12:34 Path A, path B And um You chose path B potentially out of convenience. Even though you knew that wasn't the right thing. And like

12:46 I I actually expected better of you and like I expected like I I I I think the next time this happens in your career, you should go a path like A, um, because uh based on your conviction. And therefore that's hard to hear, right? Because it's right. And um But it's also extremely valuable, right? And so um what I would uh what I love is a con uh like an environment of people who are hoarding each other. accountable to Um

13:10 the actual potential rather than sort of their current level plus a mar plus uh some some some Um I know. Little bit extra. There's so many threads I want to follow here.

13:21 The example of the school is such a pertinent one to me right now, where you're looking at preschools for our son and They're describing their education philosophy. I'm like I don't know why I should believe this is the right approach and it makes me just want to spend all this time researching what education approach. works. I know it's just preschool and maybe not as critical yet. Do you have a bet yet? Because like I mean obviously I have I have I have three kids too and this This is sort of

13:45 kind of decision every that faces every uh every parent faces, right? Like Um But interesting business analogy here. Um Is um So many of you pro uh of your listeners are probably um um uh product managers of machine learning projects, but maybe this this this resonates.

14:01 But like so there's a funny thing about machine learning, which uh you're just like you you you train uh on a lot of data and uh you know, hopefully you get something um uh that that predicts a thing you want The the the biggest problem of this is overfitting, right? Like so you um end up um uh defining a uh you know, what does good look like, a loss function and um which is a heuristic because it's not the actual task that the thing will do in the future. It's something that proxies Um

14:26 To the Task that you want the thing to do in the future. Um predict fraud, predict the next word, whatever. So overfitting is basically model learning how to cheat on the benchmark, on the or like on on on on the fitness function. So There's a business analogy of this.

14:42 Which is that um uh or not actually analogy, it is just it's called Goodhardt's law. It's literally the same thing as overfitting, just for businesses. Good as Logis says any metric that um uh becomes a goal ceases to be a a good metric. Um And um Same Exact thing. Like like the the the universal truths are things that any

15:01 Almost any competitive field will um invent for itself by different terminology often. And I think this is also by way by so interesting to focus on personal growth and and and and learning a lot about a lot. Because you end up finding these sort of hidden harmonies behind things. The the things that are clearly enduring. Correct.

15:20 Insights. So Um uh overfitting uh Guthard's law, the same thing. Yeah. Like

15:26 School optimized for what? Um Marks supposedly. Right? Like um In fact overfitting in school is literally the kids cheating to get marks, right? Like so um

15:42 Um so there's y yet another analogy. What is, however, the right uh loss function for children. I I Do you have you made a decision yet? No, I have not. We just started down this path. I told you it's the kind of thing where this is like you need to uh like you have to actually go fairly deep in philosophy to figure this out. And then and then again afterwards you can build like you can find the schools that you like. For I mean just like supplying of this for us. For us it was just

16:08 maintaining curiosity. I I like th this is a completely different goal from being good at Marks. Um But like I I I just think like everyone's born extremely curious and uh school has a habit of um um Uh

16:24 Getting it out of kids. Literally. As a foundation model of a child of a child and you fine tune it on school and like it just like loses the neurons of curiosity because it's like it's it's actually discouraged. to meander into other topic and and explore them just because they're interesting. And um I

16:40 This is sort of not like the beat of a podcast, but like I I just think about this a lot. It's like it's funny how these kind of uh things just recur constantly. So when Archie was on the podcast, he's the head of growth at Shopify. Uh, I don't know if that's the official role basically drives a lot of the growth. He talked about how the core product team outside of the growth team operates without KPIs without specific goals and decisions are driven by

17:02 Taste. And intuition. Primarily you and Glenn and some other leaders. And a lot of people heard that and they're like, I first I don't believe that. Second of all How does one operate that way when there's no data to tell us exactly what is right and good?

17:16 So the question I have is just how does one operate in that way successfully? Like what does it take? For a company to work that way because A lot of people will try it and fail. This is very close to what I've what I just talked about with the overfitting. But um Yeah, good's law is real.

17:30 The moment you create uh like s moment a metric becomes a goal, it's no longer useful metric. Right. That's the that's I think the More or less a precise voting. Um Why? Because um No metric by itself.

17:44 Prox is it is a complete heuristic for a complex business because business are complex. There's a million of different uh tensions in a company, and you can't all keep them in harmony by uh op optimizing for for for one thing. So It's true that we don't have KPIs and we don't have uh like like uh like at least OKRs in the sort of circumvalue sense. But we

18:06 Are extremely data informed. We have we have invested enormous amounts of money and like or money and t time into systems that like um give us basically everything on our fingertips. I sometimes demo this to our founders and they're kind of like completely bought over by the way we can uh dig into basically every um Um

18:27 Every constituent atomic bit. uh part that makes up the cohort that just got formed fifteen minutes ago by the end of a um at the end of a uh a quarter or month or week. And so So it's actually that um

18:44 What Shopify attempts to do Um is to Um and in a lot of different places this is one of them, but also in its products It's just not

18:55 Uh overfitting for the quantifiable because I think there is like again, this is one of those things. Everyone competes for everything that's highly quantifiable because it's like Because it's like it it really um It it's kind of fun. It's like it's like a game. It's like an you you you you you tweak a number and like point one more is like better than point one less. And so

19:14 Um Like that that's a immediate gratification thing. But like I I just think the overlap of m most valuable things you can do with a product and for things that happen to be fully quantifiable is like maybe twenty percent, which leaves eighty percent of a value space unaddressable by the people who only look at the quantifiable things. So what actually happens is shop file is

19:36 Comfortable but for unquantifiable things such as Tastes. quality, passion, love, um hate. Like it's it's like the strong emotions that people have. Um

19:49 the s the sort of deep satisfaction. that a craftsperson feels when they've done a job well. Is actually better proxy if you allow it to be. Then um the the the You know

20:03 Do the unit tests pass? The unit tests might not pass. And the unit tests will pass fifteen minutes later because we we fix them or or or adjust the one or two things. Um so they support us. But growth numbers we're looking for. We have systems that tell us exactly if something goes the wrong way. There's an extremely sophisticated rollouts uh system in Shopify that forever h holds hold outs and correlates everything with everything for for for in in every experiment and so on so on so on.

20:31 But we think about it as a cockpit for a uh pilot. And um Um uh the decisions are still made by pilots and we think this leads to better results. It's

20:41 Just like The same with our product. We also ask people to just like Not Like there's plenty of A B testing tools and all these kind of things for commerce. And it's of course like really important to figure out what the conversion rates are. But are you representing your brand is a qu unquantifiable question. Are you proud of a thing that you have built? Are you um

21:00 Are you do you feel it's your own? Um right? Like And so I think there needs to be more acceptance. uh in businesses offer unquantifiable things. One the most powerful thing the most powerful uh No unquante

21:14 Fire both things. In the world of business. Uh Fun and delight. If people have fun when we're doing something

21:25 That is just Upstream from so sorry, downstream from so many other things. Like I think that if all the metrics are pointing down But everyone says, My God, I'm having so much um

21:38 uh more fun. I think that the the very next thing that will happen. With some time delay, is all metrics will start going going up. And so I think that is uh and if that doesn't happen, then we uh just course. And then The reason why we specifically don't have OKRs and these kind of things is because

21:54 If you want to hold uh the unquantifiables as uh things that are stable and exist like um But that um people actually do really defer to them and really actually learn to be Um Uh okay if someone just saying, Hey, this is actually just like

22:09 Really great. And we're shipping this. Then um Uh you need to make certain edits to the business that don't remind everyone too much of uh you know the companies they might have come from which uh you know where they're the only way to get promoted is by uh driving the metric up. So It's a bit of an one once conversation, I I suppose.

22:26 Maybe slightly less uh for like good on the fortune cookies saying like Shopify doesn't do OKR, so it doesn't do metrics and and and and so on. But it's actually just because the metrics take a support p function where um The often defer to uh just More

22:42 You know, sometimes a little bit m emotional, but like generally less um uh quantifiable things. I imagine if someone were to hear you describe this uh of like focus on joy and fun and love and delight. Uh

22:55 Maybe th like it's easy to dismiss that. Like this it's it sounds completely idiotic, right? Like so this is a funny thing. It's like it's like You can There is an aesthetic in the world that exists, which is that um business people dress in suit and tie. Um, they are speaking much more sophisticated than I do, usually without an accent. Um

23:15 uh have a full head of hair. They um um uh talk about metrics. They are in front of Pown presentations. They usually have a stick and show dramatically at the pie chart that is behind them. And um Um uh highly charismatic, highly like everyone likes it just like so that's our aesthetic. How much is that aesthetic?

23:35 Overlap with Outperformance. I don't know. But some of them some people put it off who are like this, but like I I I just like if I think

23:44 The world is sort of stacked to lead us astray based on Um our stories about what Optimal looks like are just so incorrect and in so in in in in in in so many ways. Optimism always sounds dumb. Well, at least naive.

24:00 Um Pessimism sounds extremely sophisticated. Um you know, metrics driven sounds extremely sophisticated. Talking about fun sounds like

24:09 Naive. It's just like I've at this point like kind of learned to um Well, first of all, I've I I've always kind of ignored um uh You know, what people think, generally. Um Um that came pretty natively to me somehow, which I'm very lucky about.

24:23 Um but I I've now actually learnt that Um Almost all the alpha in the world is now in the Exactly, with things where the unobvious but true. And the things that people dismiss as an Eve or or so. You know, uh I mean just um

24:39 Mm uh like the most successful business person up there at earth is Elon and he conforms to no idea of what like the most suffisticated business person ought to be like in any which way you can imagine. So it's um I think we live in a world where the Um The counterfactuals are winning, um because our Uh like Bec because aesthetics are are just leading us astray.

25:02 This is an awesome segue to the other theme that I wanted to spend some time on, which is thinking from first principles. Elon is the classic example that. Honestly, I think you're the other most uh classic example of that these days. And we'll keep talking about all the ways you operate very differently from other companies, which are examples of this.

25:18 But I wanna read a quote from Glenn Coates he shared with me of how he sees you. that gives an interesting lens into uh your first principle's thinking. So here's what he said about you. Toby is at his heart a true futurist.

25:31 He's obsessed with the way he thinks. should be in the future. Being data driven is innately being anchored in the way users and technology are behaving today. He's never really said this to me explicitly, but knowing him, I think any design that is drawn primarily from the way things are or were. is one that he sees as inferior to one that is skating to the puck of the way things could or should be.

25:52 Does that resonate? Yeah, I mean I think that's correct. That's actually really interesting. I I like I uh Your podcast is a podcast by a builder. Um Four other builders.

26:08 Here's the most Interesting question, I think people uh can It's like What is your energy source.

26:17 Where like what are you where are you getting energy from? I I I I think fundamentally exists at room temperature, almost all companies are sort of at running at bad, sort of humming along, doesn't do anything. There are certain individuals who can inject Heat into. businesses. Founders do this very well. All the startups anyone's ever heard of have people who are injecting heat, because if no one would inject heat into the business,

26:42 At room temperature you cannot outperform anyone else. You can't be you can't be hotter than uh everyone else if no one's injecting. Um uh he heed into the in into concern. So um Fundamentally Um

26:56 There is a uh injection of energy into um companies That comes from uh founders and the best leaders like all the people you've had on the podcast from Shopify are the perfect Um set of

27:09 cast of characters or people who are just like Exophermic. They are just like uh uh well springs of of of of energy that can uh that that leads to other amazing results that we get to enjoy. So um the question is where does the energy comes from come from? Yeah. And that's another one of us discussions which very quickly goes into the emotions. Actually

27:30 That's a really so I watched The Last Dance, like a the the Netflix special of uh like Michael Jordan a while ago, of course. But There's like one scene where he just like, um I I I'm sure this is a super famous story, um and then and and he just sort of made up an insult that someone told him. So that he would then go and like just want to destroy them afterwards, which he then of course proceeded to do. Because It's hard to imagine anyone more exophermic than him.

27:57 So so we know what his energy source is. Right? It's like rivalry. It's potentially it's insult or it's anger, something like this. My um I am not uh

28:07 Like my energy source is dissatisfaction with status quo. Май фундаментал белф It's all this talk about technology, where all like all so many books are about this Technology leading to dystopia. You know what dystopia is? Today.

28:22 like compared to what it will be in twenty years ago, or any like and you can play this for any part of human history. I'm not making a future statement, I'm making a Al almost to twelve go. um statement about the experience on planet Earth. Like no one who really thinks about this would want would want to be born into a world twenty years before today, uh rather than today. And so Um Um

28:44 I I think today is the dystopia of the future. And um Um, I think it behooves us to try to uh, you know Mm-hmm. Mm.

28:53 build the kinds of problems that lead in towards progress in in a small way or or or Or a big way. But yes, I think if someone comes to me and says, um, hey, let's go do this thing, and you know, um We've looked around and here's sort of how people solve this problem. Let's make a good version of that. I'm like That was not the job.

29:13 Because Everything That you encounter that Like every solution, every product, everything that exists is path dependent. Highly, highly, highly path to parent.

29:24 And often path dependent based on having to make compromises Based on Um Things that were true at the time when a decision was made.

29:34 But are no longer true. Right. Uh you know, like the entire field of uh why was it? Like I I forgot the name of a field. Um uh Kromsky's field, the the the linguistic research field. It's like cool. And we now have auto-regressive models that are just like we we don't actually need to set up a complete like we don't need to research the structure of

29:56 grammar to be able to make machines also like engage in uh uh spoken word. We actually can just like train on the internet, it turns out. So That was not possible back then because you didn't have the right architecture for this, but now it is. So I think What you have to do This you actually have when you come up with a new product or you discuss a new product You have to derive it from first principles. You have to say, How would we solve this problem?

30:21 given every f fundament like building block that we have available right now, for that to do that, you actually have to understand the power and the composability of all the building blocks that exist right now, which is a tall order. Um and no one is perfect at this. But so this way you go ahead and say, Okay, cool. So this is how we are implementing this thing. This is how it would be implemented. Today.

30:42 And um Now we can talk ourselves in taking shortcuts. Maybe we should actually start out. doing it the way everyone else does. Maybe We come we we we derived exactly what everyone else does. um as the correct thing to do. Sometimes there was a lot more wisdom encoded.

30:59 In the status quo. than you expect, which is I I think is super delightful when you figure that out. Um Um and um Like so then you act on it. But what isn't okay

31:09 Is skipping the exercise and doing the same thing everyone else does, because that is again a abduction of product leadership. Um and so So yeah, I would say I would Like I I become extremely suspicious if I get a pitch to do a good version of s of the same thing everyone else does. Because

31:26 I just find that In our space specifically, very rarely um to be um uh the best solution. There's a couple of quotes along these lines I've seen that describe the way you think about this stuff. If most people are doing it a certain way, I by default don't want to do it that way.

31:41 And If you want to do something world class, you can't do it like everyone else. Yeah. Yeah. I mean this is the I I don't even think that's an opinion that I hold. I think that's actually like

31:53 We're basically in axiom territory here. Like um Like if you want to do something better. Then what exists. You have to do it differently. Like in like that does not make a statement about if it will be better in like uh like in the end after you do it. It could also be worse. But you can't get something better done if you do the same thing. It just it it's like axiomatically not possible to do. Um

32:15 This like fails Archimedian logic. And Yet it's something it's a you would be amazed how many business plans are actually um uh failing Archimedean logic uh in this way. Like let's do a good version of this thing that we've already been doing, and uh we will capture one percent of the market and you just like this kind of stuff. It's like a tries me I'm I I I find kind of cute. Is there an example that you can share of you approaching the problem this way? I imagine it's constantly happening. You also mentioned like you're born this way, so I think it's hard for someone to just like sit down, learn, think the way Toby thinks, but Uh I'm

32:48 I I'd love to help people start to approach problems this way. So maybe an example might help. So uh I think this is entirely learnable. I think. Um and um Uh so so I encourage people to just have a practice of like things step by step, essentially and just Just do it.

33:04 Um it'll become a habit pretty quickly because it just It's also just outperforms. Examples. Um I mean the very first example is like Shopify itself, like like cool. So um there was lots of e commerce software. And it all puffed. It's all it was all the way it was because the

33:19 Because of path dependents. Because Everyone who wanted in two thousand four, two thousand five uh e commerce was an existing retailer. And therefore they had complex businesses that needed to be portted online, including all of their um

33:33 somewhat Byzantine uh business logic. I wanted to make e commerce software that would uh, you know The you know, do very well on the Internet of the future. And I believe that um we can make it easier to start new businesses online, um than it is in the physical world, because the physical world is income that by a lot of regulations and and and and also upfront costs and

33:55 for for leases and so on. So um let's optimise for that case. Um and um Uh that's something That is uh so intuitive to use

34:06 That um Yeah. Frustrated. People in uh In um

34:12 Dead and Courier's can spend their lunch breaks uh making progress towards building their own business, which then eventually allows them to um um you know do it on their their own way. And so um you know, being fortunate was fires eventually turns out to be a much better prep for um also solving all the enterprise cases because No one had to like

34:34 Enterprise software is uh overfit to the sales process, um, which is that um Yeah. wins for RPs because it has every feature ever, or at least a way of putting a checkbox next to every R F P line. Ever

34:47 But they don't they're not good. But like it's a g it's a great ex the N R P is a great example of overfitting. Um in in in in in in the world of uh uh procurement. Because it tells you nothing about the quality of stuff behind it. So uh but like honestly, this happens.

35:02 Like All the time. Like it's just like we are we are um setting the stage for much more, much higher quality um retrieval uh for um uh uh like the products on Shopify and across Shopify. Like I think we've been in a local maxima on search and um

35:20 We think that especially with uh Advances of You know, the the new models, certain things are now possible to do. That could not have been done. Yet

35:31 Because again of This sort of layers and layers of path dependents and no one coming and saying, Is that the best way to do? and maybe we should rebuild this component um periodically. We can now do a a better job with uh search that will lead to like much more delightful experiences. And so so this is like a fun project that where this is happening right now in I think this is really interesting because what I'm looking for is kind of like The uh Toby algorithm of first principles thinking.

35:56 Elon's kinda got these famous uh ways of thinking he shared one is like Uh start with like the cost of metal to help you understand how much a rocket should cost. And then he's got this like five step Like First decide do we need this thing, then figure out how to

36:10 uh optimize it then automate it. Uh what I'm hearing so far, and I'm curious if you've thought about this. And not or and if not, this feels like it really good blog post in the future is the Toby first principles algorithm. But I'll share a couple of things I've heard so far as you've described it. When is

36:25 Uh analyze kind of the path. that existing solution does. relied on almost like the assumptions. That were True for it to be built back when it was built.

36:34 And the other is this overfit. Like what is it overfit for? What is it over solving? That maybe isn't necessary. Is there anything along those lines of just like how you approach problems. This is probably too nerdy technical. Like it you're right, but I should uh figure myself out a little bit. Um my my my brain runs on like a meter language that isn't like directly Something I can translate into words. Um

36:56 I I suppose. I I I I think more about things like this in terms of um Programming constructs, pure functions over state. Um and I I I think the I I think in any moment

37:08 The best decision to do is like I I think the b the perfect product. Lead. It's almost like a thermistard for high quality product. It's like you're you're setting saying I would like to build something really, really great.

37:24 And I'm gonna go through a series which is much, much more complex than um What a filmistart does which Basically checks the temperature and then makes a decision of like, you know, air aircon or um or or heating. Um

37:37 You make you re derive literally every decision. That is valuable. Foundational assumption, every foundational uh um A B C d direction And and and and you want to see

37:51 Fifth. The f observation you've made in the meantime since you last arrived the next step. r rerunning the entire function over the state that is now updated, um uh the higher fidelity information. would you come to the very same thing? Sometimes fairly early in the construct in the tree of foundation assumptions, uh like a change is made.

38:15 Uh example we all had was uh you know, beginning of Covet when we suddenly had shelter in place. Like so Shopify has like built incredibly good office spaces and um we were very in person company and um If open source our floor plans because uh we I think we we we'll added something to the um to to to to the understanding of how to put great uh like I got a lot of founder energy for my co-founder, Daniel, um to to build great um collaborative spaces for for creative work with lots of uh sort of happy accents people running into each other and so on.

38:45 Um anyway. Like we were very, very, very, very, very determined on doing that. Um But Somewhere in this construct of nesting

38:55 Uh um functions you have to rerun and foundational assumptions. It's In the stack is the Fa fairly basic bullion. Of

39:04 Are people allowed to leave a house? Which was yes. Like The moment that flips It's not that just like okay, over here let's do the best that we can do.

39:14 It's actually that the entire tree now moves into a different place. And it can be a very far place. difference that you learn. Because You will make the same quality of decision on every step, but you need to rerun something that like takes you to a to a completely different um uh like landing zone. And so then this is also easy for us to say, cool, we are gonna be remote only forever. Like let's go. Um and um because

39:36 We we we realised But the temporal shelter in place would cause a series of events that would make that the optimal uh like best set of trade offs. for for for for the company. And so I I think this is

39:50 Like Can I put this into a pivot five step I rhythm? No. Um but Uh uh maybe it resonates as someone who can help me like figure out the like coded English language for this because it's like it's just been nerdy way I explain it even to me. This remote work example is something I definitely wanted to touch on, which is I'm glad you got there. So in this decision, uh

40:11 Is there anything more you could share about how you got to that place of like, oh, this boolean changed? So we should rethink this. Cause I know what you're probably you weren't, I don't know, were you in the shower and just like, oh, wow. We should really Go remote because of this. How did that actually come about? And then I went asked to Pretty much actually, yes. Um

40:29 Because again I I I I rerun. over all the inputs and like figure out what what's what what happens. And here's a couple of other things that we're starting to fray on the decision. Um uh to be in person as well. We we we we did um Just we started in Ottawa, Canada, which is a city of a million people and it has um uh some tech heritage and good universities. So

40:52 But at a million people, um You're not population dense enough and have have has a you know, you know, depth of talent pool uh

41:04 that it can support a company that was going to ten thousand people. Um So anyone who runs this optimization function I'm talking about here, about uh location strategy. For a new startup. Will come Like

41:16 to the conclusion, or if I do it right, that everyone should be sitting around the same table. Only if you can't do that do you say, Okay, let's be all in the same Only if that doesn't work anymore. You say, Okay, let's be spread over one floor. If that doesn't work in the same building, if that doesn't work in the same city, if that doesn't work, at least stay in the same time zones, right? Like or or make sure that there's good hub connections between like this is how it works, like it's just like some assumption somewhere along the line is invalidated, diff you end up in a different side of a decision tree.

41:47 But um um But what was happening to us was we already were in like four or five cities, we we were adhering to the same time zone. Um Uh point at this point. But I have my experience was I I went through sometimes

41:59 at for out of our office for the entire day we had like Ten hours of meetings. Which is, you know, kind of fairly normal. But like I

42:08 I do um Every single I don't think I had a single other person sometimes. with me, uh because every one of them was with people in another office, some people are dying in remote and so on. So there was like a like an awkward hybridness.

42:24 Which we ended up in making only good decisions along the way. This is actually the most dangerous thing. Like Most of the time you end up in a bad part of a tree in a bad in in a local maxima of a path dependent environment. By only making good choices.

42:39 People think that like Making a good choice. inoculates you from ending from from making mistakes. Um Or that the presence of a kind of downside of an idea ends up disqualifying the idea. Both of these things are incorrect.

42:52 So Um what you need to do then is uh so so uh like that was an overlay to the decision. The moment Covet started, then um we also had this thing of shopping verse exploding because we were actually like an asset to people doing COVID, uh with e commerce for all the local businesses. And we took that very, very seriously, trying to make more businesses survive COVID. Small business to survive.

43:15 this particular uh calamity than otherwise would, which is important because small businesses tend to be wiped out first, um uh any time um the times turn fragile. And so um um we needed to staff up And so there's a very weird question about where to stuff up. So um Clearly the better

43:34 Um Input where would be if you could hire people everywhere. Um And so

43:41 Like once that Decision flipped. You can see how this is actually now super easy to say we are going to be remote, right? Um Because There is no turning back.

43:52 There is no Like even with this decision, it's a better set of trade offs for the future for the future. Is to accept the vast additional difficulty of building a remote company. It's way harder. Like it's it's it's it's

44:05 Like It's not something you should recommend to anyone to do this. Because you It's it's It's the same as trying to uh run a world record marathon run at uh uh in in Aspen, Colorado. It's like there's not enough oxygen up there, like to do that. Like it's it's but if you

44:21 But if you end up putting it off. You're real chat. Right. Like so like that's very cool. So um I I I I I find um difficulty itself interesting. Um and Again, I spent enough of my teenage years as on the internet to know that there's amazing cultures that can be put together purely remote, like I know. Wikipedia.

44:40 World of Warcraft, rating guilds uh have Uh you know, ca can at least at least have excellence. Cultures. And so um be like okay, cool. That's uh We derive all like like let's let's let's come to a new stable part. That stable part was don't port the office online, let's port the internet into a company. And um then we're like let's go.

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45:56 dot com slash Lenny I wanna talk about this talent stack concept that you've touched on a couple of times that I think is but before we get there. I wanna kinda go in a different direction, which I think is an interesting uh foundational element to your ability to be successful in your first principles thinking. Which is you getting

46:14 Kind of to the metal, to the to the to the core of the problems you're solving by actually Spending a lot of time coding. And I actually heard a story

46:23 about how you all had this huge all hands summit, you flew everyone in, you were all together. There was a three day hackathon. And the way it was described is you're just You're sitting at a table With headphones in, coding. Just like an o any I C engineer, no one would have known you're the CO of this company, the founder of this company.

46:41 Why is coding and working in the code? To you still so important. That's so yeah, so funny but that's the way the story goes. It's like um I mean it's right, but like I I don't know why that is surprising. Um That's like

46:54 I mean my happy place. Like like being able to like clear out uh Three days of my calendar and Yeah. Being there till midnight with all these remarkable people would join us on journey, just like like building stuff. It's like

47:09 I mean I do my job so that that is the jobs that exist for other people. That's the job I actually want. That's the phone I couldn't find because no one put kind of company for me, but uh uh like at least back in those days. Um I think still not really. And uh so so I

47:28 I mean I just I just love coding. It's it's it's one of the greatest thing uh it's one of the greatest sort of I don't know, hobbies and Pursuits. It's

47:38 I've done it for very long time. Uh I came across it very, very early. It fits my brain. Like a glove. I um I uh I appreciate so much of the craft behind coding. I am a trained apprentice in uh sorry, I I I've made I've apprenticed as a programmer in Germany, which is which has a dual education system that you can do such things. Um, so I've been professionally sp uh in companies

48:04 uh spending. Um uh all day. Um uh and I really mean it. Uh pro programming ever since I'm I just turned sixteen. I I think first day was just like Just before I turned sixteen, um, when I started my apprenticeship. And so um

48:19 I I d I love it. I have I have like I mean I I have a view on my screen. left of you is uh uh cursor right now. Um where um which is opened to a um Uh Juniper Notebook. Yeah, I'm um

48:33 working on some projection stuff um that I'm um playing with It's Like I I I I try to sanity check as much as I can of what I get. I try I I I I try to find um It's it's a game for me to find. Um new insights in data and just like

48:50 I don't know. I It was cool. There is maybe this is the picture you talk about. Um there is a picture that someone captured which is really fun, where like um I'm I'm on my laptop with a bunch of engineers and then um Hali Um

49:05 So president. It's um on stage DJing. Like this was like taking it like one AM or something like this. And it's like It's a p it's a picture which actually really precious to the two of us because it actually um perfectly summarizes like our relationship in a way. Um which uh is is like it's these happy accents are wonderful in these like long journeys. I've been doing shop for twenty years now. It's like so I'm I appreciate these artifacts. Um but um yeah. So To be clear, the reason this is uh unusual is and why someone told me this story is most COs do not do this. Don't just sit there. And code along with the team.

49:41 And the reason I thought the story was important is And the reason I think your first principle approach works is you're you're actually in the engineering details similar to Elon, if you think about it, of just like

49:55 in the weeds, doing the thing, understanding how the thing works, not just coming up with ideas out of, you know, plantifications. And so I guess is there anything there of just like how important it is if you want to approach thinking from first principle as it is to be really close to the metal.

50:10 Yeah, like I mean first principle thinking starts from uh You know I I I think Elon puts it as physics, which I think is like is a is a little bit atoms coded. Um I I think just like Like from from the atomic building blocks really is a is is is a right starting point. Um

50:28 Um But Like the atomic building blocks are the computers we are using. Like we we very like computers are our instruments, right? Like we we play uh we we we use them to create the music that then people appreciate uh to to to to receive in the form of software. So so you've gotta understand how They

50:46 work at least to work the way I do. No, it's the way I work Optimal. Of course not. This is where m my point about the aesthetics of how to You know How to pre

50:56 You know, how to behave, how to work, like I I I I I I probably don't conform to the sort of traditional view of what the use of uh public companies should be like or even should spend their time. But I think it I'm successful because I don't. Uh Uh c try to conform to anything other than what I've learnt works. And so what I've learned uh what I learned works.

51:17 Is um Be in as many details as you can. Like really, really, really just understand the stuff that we are making decisions about. And um you know, be willing to uh You know, like don't don't put too much stake into the Sunquest policy, like try to inoculate your

51:35 business or your your your parts of a company. Um uh from a sunk cost fallacy as much as possible because that allows you to just see better solutions and so on. And um you know, I think what we were doing, if I remember right, is like uh Um at hack dates as V

51:51 We were Working through pros of cons of just like merging all of Shopify into one huge monorepo and we are sketching out Like directory structures and like um tooling that we would need and um I you know, that's that's one of those again.

52:05 Like Monarpo now is like for companies is like a very much one of those Door A, Door Beef kind of things. It's a very consequential choice that um Is um

52:16 Go say yes to at a certain sli size. And then it becomes very correct in my mind to to say yes to. But at that point it's an enormous amount of effort.

52:27 So it's a kind of thing that actually is like Something I'm I'm I'm uh uniquely positioned to be involved with. Because it's actually a business strategy thing as well. It's like that's an investment, a very real investment, to say, Hey, let's change our like the way we are building system, let's figure out

52:45 what the best way is. Um there's gonna be change management. Some people are like there's gonna be some people have very strong opinions on yes or no. Uh and frankly Toby said so helps. Like it just it's simply it also compresses a lot of time, right? Like um because everyone knows. Um the way I work I I I'm I um Everyone can come to me with better ideas about anything.

53:12 And if you're right, I will change my mind. Um, but I will hold my opinions very, very strongly until the point of uh being convinced that they're not the correct ideas. Um which again is Maybe that's another aspect of history tonight, I think you talked about earlier. Like people do find like I mean there's again the aesthetics of our times. Um

53:29 Put a lot of uh steak. into consistency, right? I I I remember various politicians losing campaigns because they were called flip floppers at times, which I Like Oh well, you know, I I'm more of a main uh school of um you know when the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir? It's like sounds like um uh bet a better OS to go by. So

53:52 It's awesome because I'm extracting more of these of your algorithm of how you think about stuff. And so a few things you just shared are One, you need to be in the details. So this is I think about To be successful as a first principles thinker is be you need to be in the details in your case code. In Elon's case, it's like build the thing and be at the factory sleeping on the floor.

54:12 Yeah, as you said, he's very Adams based. You're more digitally native. Uh. And then also don't be so reliant on sunk costs. Re like Like you said in this Toby tornado case, just like I know you've been working on this project, we're gonna kill it'cause it's not gonna work.

54:25 Better we do that now versus us just keep going because we've been going. And then coming back to the stuff you've shared previously is analyze kind of the path. That you've been on. that the previous products and solutions have assumed. the path dependents of them and then

54:39 Don't look at what they've overfit potentially that isn't Correct. Love it. Okay. This actually is a good segue to something else that uh Someone that you work with suggested ask you, for Han, your head of engineering.

54:54 asked him, what's the best way to kinda get a glimpse into Toby's mind? And it's actually along the lines of what you just described, which is The question is just what's the best way to disagree with you? I think just disagree with me. I I immediately love it. Like honestly. I I uh I I I I actually I I really crave it. It's it's very funny. Um because it that really I I I I I know how this like really

55:14 Surprises people and I actually Um appreciate it even more because it requires courage. And frankly, I actually do find that um But it also makes me immediately trust the person more, partly because I first of all think they will do

55:29 what they think is right rather than what is convenient. Um agreeing with sort of a group is tends to be much more convenient. But more than that, actually that they're courageous enough to do it in right right then, right? Because like I I I mean, I do find that um I think courage is really, really rare. Uh like it's I I've I found um I found more

55:53 I found a lot more high IQ in industry been current. Uh I find find a lot more Maybe even genius than uh than than courage. So So so I I I I like that. I wish it wouldn't require that. I this is why I try to be very inviting of it. Um so When someone disagrees with me, I uh

56:12 I I I tend to immediately stop and saying, Cool, this is like let's like let's let's That's It's figure out why there's disagreement. Um And it's almost never, I find, in the sort of

56:23 I just feel like we should do this differently. What I'm looking for is like of a unstated foundational assumptions. What is our divergence point?

56:33 Because Yup. Might be right. In fact people often are when it gets to this point, um, I found. You know, sometimes it's m an uh unstated foundational assumption that I hold that is like

56:46 Um Um Incorrect. And then I uh people tell me and then I'm so glad we talked about it, because I will stop forever nagging on this thing because now I know we can't do it because of I mean seven soxley or something like this. It's like cool. I just my my My mental model of that's obviously uh which is like regulation for public companies. Um

57:07 is not perfect. Uh and um like I I I have not in depth studied all the details for it. So um um I will not um consult this in my mind when I am saying heavy shooting we should um Uh uh Mm sort of the task at hand in a certain way. So this is very good. Um so yeah, like how to disagree. I I Uh you know, I really like uh

57:28 I really like the bait. I um will play Devit Devit's advocate, um, actively if everyone agrees on something. And it again, especially if you have If a proposal is something that feels Like I could have predicted would be a proposal before it got into the meeting and there was nothing surprising in it. Um

57:45 I've a make myself sort of a end boss of a level and just say, like, okay, well, um I'm gonna say this is like just not that good. Or so you know, just like I I think I think we could do way better and and I I I want people to then argue um for um more in depth for the the veracity of the decisions and um that leads to Um a form of disagreement. I think all these things end up building trust.

58:08 I like that that touches also on this idea of again maximizing potential, the potential of the teams, the t the potential of the employees. Because of course the the really important decisions we don't talk about. Because this is this is the most important thing, right? Like Shopify probably makes what, millions of decisions every day? Like Like write this code this way, like um Yes, I'm gonna add this unit test. Maybe I'm skipping a unit test. Might be uh the difference between uh future production audits, right? And um Um

58:35 Uh, and and and and millions and millions of millions of tiny decisions. So you're not hiring engineers pro the primarily or like uh accountants you're hiring, people will make excellent decisions. Um, given their sort of Uh. specialization and and uh area of uh

58:51 Overseeing and Given that, decision making as a concept is actually like really understudied, I find. And um So so I think these are instances um where um We can

59:04 Just learn to make decision making uh together. Because I think While a lot of decisions are made Um independently We are a product company. We we've we're

59:17 We have a we are on a mission and we want our product To feel like something that a single person made. Like in the same way how Any author tries to write a book, but clearly reads as

59:27 But it came from one mind. Because people can see and spot. this if this doesn't happen. It's like it's uh you you end up with something that looks like a television remote, where like where's like the Netflix button over here. It's just like it's like you can sort of reverse walk chart from uh from the t from the remote control. And um so it's um Yeah.

59:46 Like that's important. And so using these moments and also bringing decision making inwards to like go and say, like, hey let's Have Very efficient. opportunities for as many people as that can possibly get together, make decisions

1:00:02 Together. Not as a democracy, but with clear Who needs to convince who, but like But because otherwise it just ends up being like just like taking way too long.

1:00:11 But ha give opportunity for everyone to change, you know, my mind over Glenn's mind and so on. It's an excellent practice, I find. I think this is a more optimal way of Going about it. Speaking of disagreeing, it reminded me of a story I heard about the Toby tornado, actually the way you you operate that. And I love it's like ends up being this interesting microcosm of Of your

1:00:31 first principle's way of thinking. So the story is Uh I think you've said at one point that the best way to get people Uh to give you Uh. Insights is to dis is to say something they disagree with on the internet.

1:00:42 Mm-hmm. And that's often the way you approach this is you post in a Slack group, Hey, I don't think this product is gonna work. And here's why. And that ends up creating the most information for you. Is there anything along those lines that might be helpful to share? I mean I don't think that's one of my better ways of doing that. I it it is an extremely

1:01:00 I have to be somewhat careful. Like the people I work with a lot, I I will do with just Because it's funny. Um Uh the um But like I I I I mean I

1:01:11 Even I can see that uh that would seriously stress out the interns. You guys have a lot of interns. I think you have a thousand interns this coming years put for Hunter. Yeah, we had just started. I just I was uh I was in the office yesterday and it's like absolutely full of interns. It's great. Okay. Love interns, so much energy. This idea that you shared about building one product, building towards one vision, this actually reminds me of something that came up basically every Time I had someone from Shopify on which is

1:01:36 This idea of a hundred year vision that You keep. I don't know of any other company that operates in this way where the founder has this hundred year vision of where the product needs to go and working backwards from that. Can you just speak to that of that way of operating, why you find that helpful, how that actually works? I I use it uh as a way of I I I talk about um look in the future and then and and think backwards uh a lot, right? Like it's like what would we want

1:02:01 Two half. Done. twenty years ago on this, um, you know, like or ten or five uh years ago. Um what what's a decision our future selves would want us to make, right? Like as as as useful. I find sort of future casting to be generally extremely valuable. I also think that um Like I like I definitely did not build Shopify to flip. I had lots of tunes to sell Shopify to uh various people. And uh just like it's just not even um I I just don't I didn't consider it. Um because it's

1:02:27 It's just too interesting of a of of a journey and I think that's too Um Like if an endpoint for almost all companies is a convergence on on on on a set of four or five People who can afford them. That just creates too much of a mono uh culture, I think, uh in in in in thinking. And I just like

1:02:44 I I like that Chumpf is different, right? Like I I think this is good. I think It's um It's a terrible place to work for many many, many people. It's like the best place in the world to Um look for some people. And I think that's actually

1:02:56 The good like that's so good. Like that's that's That's what we want, I think. Uh we want more of this. We want um Want people to be able to window shop for a place where they can be enormously successful because it just the the place's set of beliefs just fits you like a glove. And so Um hundred years. I I um

1:03:17 Um We have very long term plans. Like at hundred years you can't talk about the sort of software project. You but you are can talk about Um The

1:03:27 Um the mission itself, right? Whatever things that will survive. for, you know, eighty years that I left on this particular time uh time frame. Um Like entrepreneurship is just precious, right? Like this is like uh like Shopify exists basically to make entrepreneurship more common.

1:03:44 That's the that is the thing we want to cause in the world. We have had I think success. Doing this already. But there again there's no speed limit and no uh

1:03:54 Like stopping point for this. Like we can we But and and as I keep saying, the world is unbelievably path dependent, and therefore If you're part of a path. We can cause it to be more In adherence to the things that we value and would like to see. And this is the wonderful thing about

1:04:10 Um company building, they can have lasting impact. And so um Um V

1:04:17 Uh making decisions based on the things that we Of of of of all the things that we can do. What are the things that will Um be most long term valuable.

1:04:27 um for the long term pursuits we are on. And um How can we make uh you know normalize entrepreneurship and uh yeah like It's it's a thing that's really important to me just because there's like

1:04:39 People don't spend enough time on it. It's like all all economics, uh like our sign of living entirely depends on You know? businesses. And um Um The

1:04:48 our part and tech. Of um an environment that is extremely uh entrepreneur and and and actually um celebrates on worship as a courageous act and a glorious act in Eden.

1:05:02 But that's not true in most of the world. In fact most of the Most people never encounter anyone who engages in doing that, right? Like um It's not something people like see as one of their options. And so I I I I just I I want us to make these choices. And I think the long term focus

1:05:18 Matters. It's also really powerful for decision making and I know this is like pr Potentially. Intuitive to most, but like Also rarely practiced.

1:05:30 Um You know, just like it comes up with um you've you've had a lot of people from Stripe on here and um uh you know, Stripe and Shopify have had like a very long term partnership, right? And Like Stripe and Shop if I had a I had potentially the most valuable partnership in a in or at least one of the top ones in in in in history of technology. Um

1:05:52 Because um You have both very small companies. And we decided, hey, let's work on the assumption that both of us are gonna win our markets and uh work together. And so Stripe's powering for payments and um we are a large part of Stripe and so on. You know. And a million points along the way.

1:06:09 Like you when when in a partnership like this, you play basically the iterated f prisoners' dilemma, right? Every instance, every every turn. you can make a choice, coordinate or defect. Defecting if our person uh uh collaborates collaborator effect. It's like if both collaborate, everyone gets a point. If one defects and the other one collaborates, you get a lot of points. All all at one moment. Um

1:06:34 So Being a good partner in business is like this sort of corporate marshmallow test. that uh everyone like like compan in a very funny way. Like just like if you see a win like the videos of a kids doing the actual martial tests, like the smartphones actually like Turn the chair around, look away from the marshmallow, and uh sit on the hands and just the go like like vibrating because We know it's right thing to wait for getting too marshmallows in the future, but like man, like if you just look at a marshmallow, they'll just eat it, right? Like so so most CEOs, most companies can't even success successfully do that. And um

1:07:07 Just like engage in like this sort of Pulling future profits forward at a discount. or even defecting on uh partnerships that would be much more long term valuable. If you're talking about long time frames, like hundred years, it's like Look, there is no question.

1:07:20 Clearly the correct way to play the president's dilemma is coordinate. For both sides. It's like way more value will be created doing that over long periods of time than any momentarial defection could possibly um uh uh be be be convenient at a mo a at a moment. And it it it um

1:07:39 It's a uh huge amount of product decisions when we are deciding roadmap. end up being very um influenced by by this because I I get pitches for things we should do and like Why don't we do this kind of uh

1:07:53 Um Change the system and we you know. There's so much money in it and um Always kind of fixed. I'm like Cool, but like

1:08:02 Almost always they come in the form of like putting future profits forward at a discount. And um But we have a long time horizon. Let's not take the discount. Let's um Also You often compromise the entire business of o after a while because you end up like just like

1:08:18 Yeah, like you you um Yeah. Your customers notice if you're going into value extraction. If you are uh like The best companies, I believe, are sort of virtually resemble like I mean from at least from a perspective of a leader.

1:08:31 resembles some kind of cockpit, or maybe like a room full of dials, right? Like full of dials or levers for um You know. monetization. Like it's like my uh my job is like adding as many of these levels as possible to a room and then not putting any of them. Because um I I I I think we do best if we're on the same side of the table of our customers and we have them become entrepreneurs, which is my mission, and we want to support them to be more successful, which is the business model we are in. We are we we get a very very small stake of uh the the the sales.

1:09:01 Um uh in our monetization system. And um uh therefore we are incentivized to make everyone as successful as possible. And um Yeah, no, like again, I when I get a Power from investment bankers or so, like it's like they they tell me I have enormous price pricing power and I could like massively change the prices. I'm like

1:09:20 Yeah, but like I'd leave Shopify if that happens to me. So like How's that good for you? Just like why? Like so It's it it just it just goes like that. There's a quote that you wrote somewhere that uh to me

1:09:33 Uh Identifies this point so succinctly. On a long enough timeline. Playing positive some games with your customers is the ultimate growth hack.

1:09:43 Yeah. Beautiful. I think that's pretty piv. Uh and it's um uh also just like Try to argue with it.

1:09:52 returns, especially in the worlds of software, right? Where where they where you can experience exponentials very e very very easily. So um Uh yeah. Like there's a lot of I I look, I

1:10:08 I I see I see company building as um I wish there would be better analogy than chess, because chess is a game of perfect information, which is totally incorrect. But One thing which I like about chess is an analogy for business is that it basically is two games that you have to be good at at both. Um

1:10:26 Uh your there's a positional game. But that you learn like develop your pieces, get gain influence by your pieces over the board. Like Um That's really, really important.

1:10:37 And then there is tactics which you learn tactic training, you go get a pu puzzle trainer and you drill tactics and you sort of Learn the Intuition to to to spot tactics, sense them, um Both of them are actually super independent of each other.

1:10:53 The business world only talks about tactics. It only talks about the conversion of Like like let's we did this thing. We changed we did an A B test and we changed the color of blue and Conversion rent went up. We'll The

1:11:07 Easy s The easy hack. I don't think that's Important. Like I I I've honestly

1:11:15 Um The tactics I mean Like you need to make you need to be good enough at tactics to not go out of business. You can't get Martin called, sure. But the Sum total of all the value of a potential tactics that you could employ

1:11:31 stays with you if you actually um are doing the positional game. The positional game is like what is the perator on the map? Uh that that that m that you uh Taking? What role do you play? How much trust Do you have a merchants? Do merchants want more from you or less? Like are you the kind of thing they are trying to optimize out of the software's band? Or we the one

1:11:53 But they ask to uh subsume all other software spent, right? Um Do they rely on you? Are you part of a team or are you used as a uh sort of tool in the toolbox sort of usually forgotten, sometimes coming out when some certain task is being done. What is what does your product cover? What industries are you uh are are you addressing? Um and and so on and so on, so on this is a positional game.

1:12:17 Um how well do the pieces fit together? Do people like um relying even deeper on your um Um And so If you do that well.

1:12:26 The tactics are yours. And you can hire a lot of people who are extraordinarily good at spotting tactics and using them. But if you do too much You end up like Extracting through the tactics the entirety of the value that you have created and um

1:12:43 That is yours to take through the positional game. And if you do that. You have nothing left in a tank. And that's the companies that we all see that just sort of Got to a point and then just like

1:12:56 Fate. Right, like that. Th most of the companies that got tacticed. um out of a position. And the the skill obviously is finding the balance between these two things of short term, not get margin called as you described, but also think ahead.

1:13:09 Is there any kind of heuristic for founders listening to this or like, Oh, cool, well, how how do I do this? How much should I be thinking about the future versus now, I guess? How do you Try to create this pie chart of driving goals immediately and show investors were killing it while also thinking ahead. They're good heuristic. I mean, okay, objective number one is don't die, right? Like so that's um again in the in the end for companies that become the story companies are the ones which did not die. Like it's it's Kind of.

1:13:32 So also sounds very basic, um, but like actually is kind of it's more actionable than it might seem. Past that point. I would argue just focus on the positional game. Right. And and Um

1:13:46 I I think this is where a bit of a discrepancy of the founder and uh um Um Like the rest of a company sometimes uh like lies. Like I think the Found us. Create

1:13:59 Finite winnable games for people. Too a but but uh um Very much serving the infinite game of developing like uh that the mission implies. increase the position on the like a like the quality of the position on the board. By a way, it's an infinite board. It's like

1:14:16 Just p picture the chessboard as sort of initial terrain, but there's like sort of I don't know. Falk on the And like it's like a terrain that's much larger that you will explore over time. I think that's sort of the most Prettiest way of the Mentally thinking about

1:14:31 Uh experience of building a company, it's an exploration and an uh collaborative inquiry into a question. that uh is implied by the mission. Um and uh You will Uh get to explore

1:14:44 how correct your mission is and how correct your uh how how good your decision making is along the way. Um Um and you get to learn a lot and this is why it's I think it's super valuable thing to do. But um Like

1:14:56 Very often the founders are in uh and the mission of a company are in uh in in in alignment, but they are again non quantifiable things. Um they they are sort of pursuits. Um And um maybe add time horizons to that. go past all of our time horizon for our careers.

1:15:15 Um and therefore that makes it hard for people to, you know, care deeply at. Um but we do care about the the instances, the games along the way. The you know, sorties that have to be done to explore part of a map, the um tactics that have to be executed. I'm not gonna take us here, but I know you're a big fan of this book, Finite and Infinite Games. I actually had ones at a book club and it blew my mind open.

1:15:36 I'm gonna link to it. People should check it out. Uh you've talked about this on other podcasts. I'm like, Yeah, it's it's a lovely book. James Cars uh did uh incredible like underappreciation. He wrote I think they accidentally wrote one of the best business books. Um they are they is trying to write a A hard philosophy book. So um Um may maybe I I don't know if it works for its intended purpose, but it's um Uh I I I think yes, uh more value in what he actually accomplished. Like he might maybe sadly I it may be that he didn't know.

1:16:05 Before he died, which is would be very sad. And it's a little hard to read some t for people, so just stick with it and just like try to wrap your head around what he's trying to say. Is my advice. I think Reading

1:16:16 I don't know how many it is, but the first couple of chapters really helps you get your arms around The story. Yeah, like w like his insight. Um

1:16:25 Uh and The rest of the book are um examples. Of his ideas applied. might take away from reading his examples is that he did not fulciate the insight of his own idea.

1:16:40 Like I think the The the Um I think It it it just ends up being very locally

1:16:48 limited invasive narrow focused. Um And it's uh I think it looks much uh uh it's a much grander idea than I think he really this is why I say I don't think he fully appreciated his quality of his own idea. Which we need a Toby version of this book with the forward. And uh I heard Simon Simok

1:17:03 wrote a book of a similar title. I I've actually never gotten around to read it, but like I think he would be very good at interpreting this if that's what he did. That's what it sounds like. I feel like his book is that book written in a different way. I wanna come back to something you talked about, which is Focusing on entrepreneuri on entrepreneurship and the merchants that you all work with. And to me this is another example of

1:17:24 Maximizing human potential. And the way I think about this, people always talk about My combinator. and Stanford and all these places that create all these companies and founders. You think about it, Shopify does this.

1:17:35 Like orders of magnitude beyond And I don't think you guys get enough credit for that. Amount of businesses you create, the amount of lives you change. We don't want the credit, but I I mean may maybe if you wanted it, we could also not get it, but that's kind of like doesn't we don't need to explore that because we actually literally don't want the credit. Um it's like like Shopify is a company that is like pushes from behind.

1:17:59 We we don't want to We want to just kind of help you do your thing. I think that's like Yeah, it's just too much grandeur in like

1:18:08 wanting to front it all. Like this is also what important like caused us to go and Had people Build their own things rather than Like start with a marketplace that like everyone gets to like lease a little component of

1:18:24 Hat. prices that correspond to magically exactly your margin. So as this usually goes in marketplaces. And so um Yeah, I think I I kinda think we don't We kinda don't want it. Um I'm I'm proud of it.

1:18:37 But that's like Intrinsic. I don't I I don't need very extrinsic appreciation for it, I suppose. Um there's Um Uh minutes, minutes, minutes of people. Um

1:18:49 But uh Use Shopify daily. Um and uh but that's that that is represents the business and um You know, it i it it it caused a major amount of employment, um um in you know, around the world actually. It's definitely in Um

1:19:03 Uh like in North America specifically. And um York. And so um I think that's really gratifying. I I'm sure there's a way of Same but

1:19:13 many of us businesses might actually have existed. Um uh without Shopify, I I also think you can make a case that uh a a a good number exists because of Shopify. Because what we've observed It's that um This was actually it's my favorite Feng B. Uh in time shop for journey.

1:19:30 But um if you sort of rigorously um Determined. Which is that Because I'm I'm uh you know, I I really, really, really um

1:19:40 prioritize good UX, um uh legible interfaces, um You can tame in enormous complexity with Great UX, um in a way that like is Make sense to people. I think this is actually um Almost

1:19:54 a moral obligation to do, um uh for for for for software? Because When software goes bad, it makes people feel dumb. And machines do not get to negatively influence people, in my mind. That is an inversion of the properity of

1:20:09 But the hierarchy of how machines um uh machines are uh tools wielded by people to be more powerful at the things that we are already great at, um than they might imagine. That's where this all needs to fit together. But beyond the mor m the moral point, which is ten years and you could definitely take the other side of, um

1:20:28 What we have determined is that every single time um We make a complex thing simpler. It is actually that more businesses will exist. on a platform. So it's it's

1:20:39 I I think this is intuitive or at least directional. But like sometimes people are not like well, you know Don't you just need to have all these features. This is sort of R of P view of the world of software, right? Don't you need to just have all the features when people can sort of implement their plan. Well no. It's like

1:20:55 Like think about the mental state and entrepreneurship uh entrepreneurs that they are I mean, especially if we're first monitoring us, we're unsophisticated. We don't know what what to do. We're kind of scared. By the way. Um Engaging in spilling something.

1:21:10 Again, is an is is is is an act of pure courage and usually some one which is very hard to hide from others. Like the people around you will know that you're doing this thing. Ask any entrepreneur. Like the amount of people who tell you to not do this is actually stunning. Like people do not want like people to just step out of a box that exists that they sort of explain to themselves around them. And and and and have a chance of reaching higher because that would sort of invalidate their own life story in some meaningful way. So like there's actually a whole lot of Um

1:21:40 um a a a a naysaying that like discourages people already, which is not super helpful. So now you have a situation Where uh you know, people are telling you to quit, um, potentially. Um Um You are like you don't have a lot of money, presumably. You uh uh don't have uh You're

1:21:59 Asking yourself, are you even doing the right thing? Um uh hopefully there's some elements of encouragement. Hopefully there's a passion. Hopefully you're trying to create a thing. Then comes the situation which is like stuns you in some way. Like

1:22:16 Somewhere where like Suddenly the software starts talking about APIs, where this is something you've never encountered in your life before. Um Uh or but like it just Like the option that you think it should have.

1:22:28 on the Text configuration screen. Um Uh Like doesn't make sense given what we know about local taxes and so on. Here's the thing that happens. So like uh you know, the beautiful thing in Shopify is you there's basically no text configuration screen, it's just correct.

1:22:46 Like The amazing thing about software is we can actually just like overtake this piece of complexity. We know what the text are everywhere. And uh we uh I just like Doing it for you.

1:22:58 You don't have to think about taxes. In this case where someone Um Encountered something that they Uh that that stunned them. Uh that that stopped them in their tracks.

1:23:09 You know, on the wrong day, what that means is like They are gonna close the browser and they say, You know what? Pocket. This is just like I I'm not cut out for this.

1:23:20 Or This piece of software I use sucks and I It's too dumb for Understanding the thing I'm Have my hat.

1:23:28 Or something else. Like everyone has a different rendering of the same thing, but just like progress stops. Yeah. It's not Just the businesses that shouldn't exist anyway, that's done this way. In fact, it's actually and this is again what the data says.

1:23:45 So many businesses get very close to this point many, many time. I can tell you Shopify did many times. Um And I have more tools on the entrepreneurial journey than most. I'm a computer programmer and I love those things. You tell me I can spend fourteen hours programming for the for the next couple of years, I'm like, Holy shit, let's go. Most people aren't like that. Um

1:24:03 So Um I've I've had uh unfair advantages that allowed me to overcome uh very technical climbs on this learning curve. Um But I know that's like m most people can't have these advantages and uh therefore will turn out of a Test.

1:24:19 And so In other words. Lowering complexity, making good UX, creating software that just autopilots taxes or payments or any of these kind of things, fraud. Like actually causes more entrepreneurship.

1:24:33 That is the best. Thing. I um Like But the the best

1:24:39 Um, answer to the most important question of my life. Yeah, but I've encountered. Because it like Um Up to this point, it was an intuition that doing the Shopify thing would be

1:24:50 Valuable in an absolute sense, in a sense that in a hundred year sense. Afterwards I knew. Right. And so um And also just means Now seeing things that are overly complex. Like

1:25:02 Or it shouldn't even be there. It's just physically painful because I know like Like It's like all these business that are like that that

1:25:11 trying to get some uh like somewhere and could exist and could now employ people and delight customers. just died along the way because of something we did wrong or poorly and so on. And so so so like this this this this is a great source of energy for me to uh keep going. I feel that. I feel that pain. of the idea of uh like any time a button's broken or it's not as uh The buttons of the wrong color and pe more people would be converting means that you're not creating as many

1:25:37 businesses and many entrepreneurs. The feeling you described of Being scared to launch something. Yeah. I exactly felt that when I started the newsletter.

1:25:46 And my solution to that as I launched it is I'm just launching this as an experiment. We'll see where it goes. Just don't worry about it. It might it might blog once in a while. And that really helped just lowering the stakes. And I could see how just things like that and advice like that can help someone get over that hump. Yes. And I think this is

1:26:04 An underexplored thing in in the world of UX. I um Random example I'm I'm uh I was absolutely delighted by um Um, maybe TikTok has the same thing. I don't No, but like Um

1:26:15 I was posting a a video to to to Instagram and um it allowed me to run a try run of of a reel. Like I it just sort of seems like a new feature. Um And um Just sort of saying like it shows it to like a couple hundred people out of network and if they like it, then it's gonna post it my profile. I like

1:26:32 I don't need that. But I thought that was like One of them more Like I I honestly just like closed Instagram and was like, Holy shit, this is probably one of the most profound insightful pieces of software I've encountered and as a connoisseur of good ideas.

1:26:46 Well, I I've never had this as a vibe of thing. It feels like an um a step function upgrade to the traditional A B test or as a concept because it's like so understandable. Um I'm like

1:26:58 What else in the world should have try runs that run out of network? Basically everything. Like, isn't it? Like it's just like it's an amazing thing. Like if we if like I like I said, like the the rarest thing in the world is not even creative, creativity or genius. It's it's it's courage. So Let's lower the net amount of courage needed. Um that Honestly That's one of us. things you can probably run a cur like an entire career on or like reinvent an industry on. Like it's the these things unfurl into incredible amounts of value if you really pursue them and come at them

1:27:29 from uh first principles rather than What How can I do the things I want to do anyway slightly better because of insight. That's good. And people should always do it. But not usually where most of a value ends up becoming rand uh like manifests when a new idea comes around. So I talk like cover about an Instagram feature. That's a weird thing to do, but like it's um I I I was actually just like really delighted because it's again, you know just

1:27:52 Tim up. A few days ago. I love this thread of courage. The example you gave reminds me also of a I feel like uh going on a dating app at a different city.

1:28:02 For the first time is another example of this, where it's a dry run, nobody knows you. But like even then, it's like isn't it like sh shouldn't there be like Hey. post my profile to a different city to like for for for telling me if it's any good. Like it's just I I mean I I've never dated basically. So like I mean, at least not in the last twenty five years. Um,

1:28:21 Uh I I I I'm I'm I'm pre uh Um Swipe. left and right dating. Um so my my conception is very low of this. Maybe I should look more at dating apps. I'm pretty sure there's some amazing UX um in those things.

1:28:33 I imagine. Uh I feel like dating is going offline more and more I'm feeling like That's the that's what people are trying to do through tireless wipe. But anyway. Gotta go in that direction. Uh maybe a couple more questions while I have you here. Uh one is

1:28:45 This idea of the talent stack. You mentioned this concept. before and this is the term that I've seen you describe it as Of this idea of The power of focusing on your unique talents and curiosity and that. leading you to the biggest opportunities.

1:28:58 Especially early early in your career. Just talk about what you've kind of Insight there. Yeah. Again I only lived one life, so I have no I I can't Monte Carlo all the decisions I make and just figure out which ones ended up being load bearing, right? Like so

1:29:13 I'm at this point pretty amused by the following thing which keeps happening, but like I I'm I'm getting curious about some absolutely random thing. It really is like fairly far uh flung stuff. Um Uh and um Like magic it becomes The way that ends up allowing me to make a very important choice like

1:29:33 A year later. Um It's like ends up being a better analogy. better fluent or a um different way to see something or

1:29:42 Another Like idea that I found. being represented in um this area of expertise that is actually just again um a another repackaging of another foundational idea which allows me to go and like look for more examples and like it's just funny this way. So even earlier in creator just like I follow my curiosity, I I love programming and I love computers and I love Uh the internet when it came along and I just like, cool, I'm gonna find a task that I find valuable, which I was sort of read I like always engage in retail and

1:30:14 I can I have a lot to say about how retail should be um brought to like by the internet to people. Like that's that just Uh that this is like a beautiful s intersection of all the things that I find interesting and then like I

1:30:30 On top of it, I found Ruby, which I loved as a as a as a technology. And then uh, you know, just now I had like I was highly motivated to tinker. uh explorer space that was clearly emergent, but like just felt very obviously of value in the future. But like I didn't do it because I I was following money. I d I did it because I was like I like learning by doing stuff.

1:30:51 And uh like I I like tinkering with things and um So um This was a way of financing my tinkering by selling snowboards and then it l led to um other things and just I I've kinda been doing that. Thing all along. It's like

1:31:06 Uh it's It's It's great fun. Great fun for me. I don't know how much of a Advice that is. But maybe a proof point that that

1:31:14 Can work really well. Um I I I sometimes voyable that like things like this end up being a little bit like You know. All you need to do is buy lottery tickets, at a lottery ticket winner, right?

1:31:27 So it's Who knows? It does resonate. It reminds me of something Brian Armstrong once shared, which is Like the reason that he Uh he's also by way uh like you you have to add him to the set of first principle thinkers if if if you're starting to cultivate one. And I think there's plenty of um

1:31:44 Thank you Plenty of uh Startup success. Um like successful founder CEOs, um, especially for public companies, uh

1:31:53 uh are surprisingly alike, um in in in in in this. Um projecting slightly different, uh maybe coming from different backgrounds, but like Um. Extraordinarily strong at this point. Okay, here's the next right way. Nominated for the podcast, Brian. We'll get on it.

1:32:10 Uh But uh well, interestingly he had basically exact same advice for what allowed him to create Coinbase. His background was Economics. Uh coding.

1:32:19 And like cryptography or something along those lines. And this like the Venn diagram is like this is the thing I'm uniquely strong at and have an opportunity to win at. Yeah. Yeah, uh so this is what we very actively tell our customers, right? Like there's a uh two thousand five essay by Kevin Kelly saying the uh like In a future on the internet, you just need a thousand true fans. Um it's like that that is what the internet and I think what ShopFice celebrates. Um that um

1:32:46 instead of trying to create toothpaste, which is of course a uh huge term, um But hard to differentiate. It's much better to um Figure out a triplicate. Uh intersection.

1:32:59 Of three different things. And um Uh Like nail it. Like I I

1:33:06 Uh, we took a winter vacation with my boys, um and my family uh like in in the Caribbean. And um I like playing poker with them. It just like it's I mean just I I like playing poker and it's like It's great, limited information game. I think it's super valuable for kids.

1:33:22 Um And so um Um I found this like uh like I I I I I might have mentioned this some some other place. But I f I found this like uh pirate gold, I think it's called. Poker set, poker chips that I look like

1:33:36 So they come right out of uh the treasure chest in parts of Caribbean. Like think about just for intersection. So it's like this is online, Texas Hold'em. Like quality poker set instead of because any you can play with like just like anything, right? Like you don't need to I'm

1:33:52 People were in the market for p making spending money on something like this. And Pirate themed. Like you're you're you're like Um

1:34:00 But I'm such a big fan, but I'm telling you about it. And and and and and people might actually purchase it because I'm enthusiastic about it. And um uh um because enthusiasm is are actually the best marketing. Um

1:34:14 Um And um Um They have At least a thousand true fans. And it it's just better to make amazing things for some people than like make something that everyone wants maybe or

1:34:27 would tolerate. And I think that's really, really good. So I think that works for your career too, because by the way, we are all entrepreneurs. So we're ready to think about any career if if you actually ask me for career advice. Is um Via products. Like we are

1:34:41 Engaged in entrepreneurship. We are Basically software as a service, if you want uh like or talent as a service. We are selling a subscription in the form of our um uh uh you know, employment, we call it. But like it's actually just like rebranded um the subscription because Frankly, because it comes with some extra protection, which is very good. Um but

1:35:00 Um it's still the same thing. It's a double opt-in. Uh a company. Um like USA. I can do these things.

1:35:07 And I will be of significantly more value to the company than uh you will have to spend on me. That's like very positive ROI, ideally. Um for a company. And a company MSS, I Agree or I don't agree. If you

1:35:21 And that's actually what deployment is. Um so I think people should think about themselves as a like product. Your career is not based on mentors you find or or Getting a promotion or not?

1:35:34 It's about what are you like. What are you too good to ignore? In like what are you like uh how good can you be? Can you be absolutely work can you be excellent. I mean you don't have to be work class and stuff, but you have to ideally you find a thing The

1:35:48 Um Like Um You are just like V

1:35:52 In this sort of tiny space of five intersections or so, there's just like like you just know more than everyone else, and then everyone calls you. Like We uh like I said, we use Ruby. Ruby was Not that fast. Shop if I would rather have it very fast. We found people Who are um

1:36:11 Like got PhDs in dynamic language, garbage collection, uh dynamic language, uh just in time compilation. Um and um uh to make Ruby fast. And uh they they're having delightful time at Shopify and like Shopify is now very fast and it's very good. And Yeah. Everyone gets to

1:36:29 Profit from us needing this because we merged back into Ruby core. I know everyone can have a JIT compiler. Um so it's like Great. I feel like every uh story is a fractal into other uh hours of other podcast conversation we can have.

1:36:45 I know you have to go run this nine ten thousand person company. And do real work. So I'm gonna end it there. We got through almost everything I was hoping to get through, but there's infinitely more questions I I still have Just to maybe end it, is there anything you want to leave listeners with, any last nugget that maybe

1:37:01 Uh you didn't mention If if I get to talk to like again uh People who look at product and In power management. thing that I think

1:37:11 maybe only implicitly came through in all this. Every product in the world Um The quality at the end of the day is simply a reflection of how much the people who created it gave a shit. About product.

1:37:24 And um it is not possible to make great products. If the people work on it, do not give a shit about the product. And I actually think this is a very important role for product. leaders.

1:37:37 To make sure that the team gives a shit. And like I think this is something that can be done. with uh building empathy for people using it. But also it can be done infectiously by the product. Leader.

1:37:50 The park leader has to give a shit. Do not engage in product work on product that you don't care about because you can't the person who gave uh who g gave you the task is looking for. And I think that's this is like this just kind of again, it so much goes into this um

1:38:09 unquantifiable conversation which we already had. But boy is that important because it just isn't about the brief document. Like it isn't about the aligning stakeholders. It isn't Sometimes in some places some of those things are aspects of it. And I think they correlate sometimes with People. But I think the higher order bit is

1:38:29 If you are in product you have um um free roads. You have to have for teams just look around. Corners.

1:38:38 But they don't see. You like you just have to understand this thing that's being done. Um Better when everyone else. Because

1:38:47 That's for that's a role. No, you don't have to do this by yourself. Everyone is on the team is of a resource to you. Um Um And uh you can query them and therefore determine what is uh uh around the corners and so on, but like in in engineering and UX and so on. But that's uh

1:39:04 That's really important. Uh second is like It's you've got to be exophermically infectious with like actually caring about this thing because Just that one thing alone will make a ten times better product. It's crazy. Um

1:39:20 How much of a like uh like of of a of a change. Uh this makes. I feel like honestly what you're describing here is like founder mode. Well it actually. Yeah.

1:39:30 Giving a shit. being exothermic excited and looking around corners, uh Yeah, I I agree. I I don't think fundamental so I I I I mean I think um Um Yeah, f Founder Mode is a super valuable term, but I actually do think that it's um

1:39:46 Um Like I I I I I answer the question about what I think about Funamode in the Discussion about pumping heat into systems. Like this this is my like

1:39:57 That's what I do. It it's just that founder mode like the founder one company I think this has an easier time existing because people dislike The people who are Pumping heat into

1:40:08 thing. Yeah, people fight them, people pointing them out. And if The boss is like this. Boss can protect the other people like this. And therefore I think founder run companies can be innovative longer because there's a there's there's there's a substrate by which uh this can stay a thing for a long time. Um

1:40:24 So anyway, that's my TR on the Founder Mode discussion, which I think is an interest like a like a really fascinating recent discussion. I find I mean it's find it's very valuable. I'm I'm sure it's misunderstood in all sorts of ways, but like I think it's more actionable than People think.

1:40:40 Toby, I appreciate you continuing to drop nuggets, even though I know you have to go Uh by the way, your video looks incredible right now. You look like you're like like this is amazing editing we're doing. Like a rainbow. Uh. Streaming across your body. Yeah, we really hit the rainbows here. So much gold sufficient leprechone here to uh to to to deliver. Okay, Toby, thank you so much for joining us. This was incredible.

1:41:09 Uh, I feel like this is gonna help so many people build Great companies. And thank you for first prints. Okay, I got it on. Bye bye. Okay, but Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

1:41:26 Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show. at Lenny's podcast dot com. See you in the next episode.

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