Glen Coates, VP of Product at Shopify, details his transition during the 2020 pandemic surge to lead an urgent internal project fixing core checkout infrastructure.
“So that was a year in which there was some really fundamental things in the checkout that needed to be fixed, like rather promptly. And so Toby asked me to move over and basically like run a, what's called a code red on checkout.”
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More from Glen Coates
Insight
Coates: Bottom-up management destroys product cohesion across multi-product software suites
“The problem with power to the edges and bottoms up decision making Is that the value of a product like Shopify, or the value of, not even a product, like a product suite, like, because Shopify has many products, right? And look at Apple, right? Like Apple is l…”
Glen CoatesMar 8, 2023▶ 28:48Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionOpen · timeframe Mar 2028
Coates: Shopify competes directly with Amazon today
“Well, I mean, Shafak meets with Amazon today. Oh, absolutely. Hundred percent. Hundred percent.”
Glen CoatesMar 8, 2023▶ 45:04Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Coates: Product founders who hire a Head of Product are quitting
“The minute that person says this other person is the head of product, they've done one of two things. They've either quit their job, or they have given that other person a title that everyone knows is bullshit, and they've basically given that person a death s…”
Glen CoatesMar 8, 2023▶ 50:15Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Coates: Competing with Shopify in e-commerce is terrifying due to its buyer aggregator engine
“These days I'm like, I'd be fucking terrified to be competing with Shopify in commerce. Not, we have a great platform, but like, we've got it joined at the hip to an incredible buyer aggregation engine, which is just hard to, it's hard to overcome how powerful…”
Glen CoatesMar 8, 2023▶ 44:38Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Coates: Shopify's key strategic weakness is lacking top-of-funnel control
“I think one of Shopify's challenges today is that we fundamentally do not control the top of the funnel, right? Like the top of the funnel for shopping on is something else, right? It's a social media site. It's a news site. It's an ad on Google. It's somewher…”
Glen CoatesMar 8, 2023▶ 51:56Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Coates: Microsoft's AI Bing launch is an asymmetric attack on Google
“Search is like a non-part of their business, but search is everything to Google. Like if search ads stop working, Google doesn't, is not a thing anymore. And so they are swinging for the fences with a completely novel approach, which might not work, but if it …”
Glen CoatesMar 8, 2023▶ 55:26Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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