The Exchanges

Q for people. Like when you travel, you probably don't directly book the hotel yourself on the website. You know, you have an assessment or something like that, because choosing the hotel might be desirable for you, but actually filling out the web form is not a value add activity for you. And so, what is your vision for how agentic commerce happens specifically? Because it seems relevant to your interests.

A It's relevant to my interest. I mean, it will be extremely valuable, and it will be something that, Um, will be done a lot and might even be like a majority of commerce or like on, on the internet. I don't know. Um, but like, uh, I think my role in this is going to be like largely into infrastructure providing, right? Like I, I, um, uh, this is the, our job is to keep our, like all the minutes of business of Shopify extremely current. And so, um, um, what, um, we want to do is make sure that like, Everyone's plugged into the various chat, uh, systems, and there's an MCP connected to every Shopify store, and, uh, you know, global catalog that's really nicely presented, so it's, um, we're building software specifically for, um, the open AIs and the clouds and the, the, the, um, perplexities to make it really, really easy for these products to show up and reason about them, and, um, and so on, because we think it's really, really important that they can show up. So, like, there's an infrastructure angle in it. But, like, how is being used? So, I think the best way to predict the future in most cases is just, like, frankly, look at what rich people buy for themselves, right? Like, you know, Uber is a wonderful company. It's also extremely predictable because rich people had car service, and, you know, so it's figuring out a way to scale that in such a way from cost basis so that ev…

AI assessment note: “we're building software specifically for, um, the open AIs and the clouds”

Q so again, it's if you end up stuck, um, uh, an emergency foil sleeping bag just so you don't die of exposure, but it folds up to it's like that size, and so you can just stick it in a day pack, and, uh, now you are somewhat more prepared for the, uh, the elements than you were before. Um, I don't know, do you have a favorite recent purchase?

A I, I like the, I, I just really like these, um, um, I mean, someone going just, like, to ridiculously further and, and, and, and, and to just, like, almost, like, products that just celebrate craftsmanship in a way, even in places where it's just, like, no one else does, like, it's like, I, I, I, weird example, but, like, I, I, you know, take all these vitamins in the morning, and, like, I've bought these, like, uh, CVS vitamin Pill cases at some point, just for travel, like for travel, and, and then I found on Shopify like this, like Japanese, uh, perfectly CNC-built, like unbelievably beautiful pill cases. Like, it's just like, it's, like, the entire website is just like a love letter to, um.

AI assessment note: “I found on Shopify like this, like Japanese, uh, perfectly CNC-built”

Q a team at Shopify that's doing a great job of their product, and there's a team that's lost and has kind of a woolly direction, and actually their dev tools suck, and so it's very hard for them to make forward progress, and they're thrashing if lots of keep the lights on work. Just how do you distinguish between the team that's struggling and the team that's executing really well?

A Yeah, I think, I think that's, I mean, this is why, um, I, the question in my mouth is, I, I should go to, I don't know. Here's what I found works, is, um, have, uh, rituals by which we talk every, um, I mean, at the latest, every eight weeks, right? Um, and so, let the teams, uh, talk about the progress against the goal. It's like the new, like we have, we have an internal system called, uh, uh, GSD getting shit done. Um, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a central registering, registry clearinghouse, Um, it's our wiki, it's our, like, feeds and stuff like this, but it also has every project in it. And so it's built around, you know, teams updating everyone else, registering, like, here's something we learned. And so, like, that was step number one. Let's get all, like, get the actual state of a business into a legible, um, internal system so that you can reason about it. Where is every project? What are the deadlines? What has changed? And so this is what these reviews are about. So we go, like, this is what we have on the screen. They, they get a little TL draw that they can drag images and mockups and everything into, but that's their area. But like, all the metrics and all the things are like around the, around the edge on the screen, right in front of everyone. And we can talk about what, um, um, uh, that and how many people are on a team and this kind of stuff. And giving eve…

AI assessment note: “get the actual state of a business into a legible, um, internal system”

Q Yeah, yeah, well, just, I found it interesting how it kind of explains the path dependence of how each country gets to where it is. Speaking of Canada, what's your advice for Mark Carney?

A Yeah, I mean, it's like, Funny, our partnership is, uh, very, very, uh, storied and layered, and somehow, uh, your board members know my prime minister. So, uh, that, that's fun. Look, I love Canada. I live now more in Canada than Germany, uh, for long, for longer. I think it's a, it's a beautiful project. It's a beautiful implementation of different implementation from the United States or from Europe of classical liberalism. Um, it's very much veered into, um, uh, socialism under, under Trudeau. He pushed that very, very hard, um, um, I am very much hoping that, ah, Mark is helping all of Canada to figure out that that's a successful discovery of something that doesn't work, because obviously that kind of push socialism always leads to poverty.

AI assessment note: “hoping that, ah, Mark is helping all of Canada to figure out”

Q Like, what's the most ridiculous internally developed piece of software?

A You have like a, a static sort of, ah, internal geosities, like it's like static site hosting, which is like, like, it's the most incredible and, like, um, geosities, yeah, like a, like a nineties web, um, um, with all the pros and cons. Yeah, like it's, it's, I mean, it send us down wrong paths. Like it's, it's very often, I say internal tools culture. This is actually a little bit of a dangerous statement. I shouldn't make it like as such. We have a, Um, very strong, uh, appreciation of good software and, and good in the context of we have to use it. Like some software is really good. Like if you use, like Shopify is really, really, really good software. If you're, um, running like a D to C business or products, some people, uh, try to stretch it to, um, subscription-based grocery stores, something. I, I, maybe that even works, but I clearly didn't build a different mind. And I actually, Although I appreciate all my customers, I'd rather not anyone use the software if it's bad for them. Because that's like, I, I, I built Shopify's to avoid people having to use shitty software, not to add to the part, right? So, so sometimes this means, given our scale and our, our minimum quality bar, uh, that you have to build it ourselves, and in those cases we do that. Uh, sometimes we build it in where we have no business doing it, and that's where things go sometimes wrong.

AI assessment note: “a static sort of, ah, internal geosities, like it's like static site hosting”

Q We had Mackenzie from, uh, Ambrook, uh, on here, which is, um, SaaS for, um, financial infrastructure for farms, but she was saying one of the big trends in agriculture right now is direct-to-consumer stuff, where, you know, you're actually transacting directly with your farmer, and I'm sure a lot of them are running on, on Shopify as well. What have you learned on the Coinbase board?

A I never had another job, really, in my apprenticeship, and, um, um, mostly learned what not to do, uh, as a company, and then, um, sort of had the opportunity to start Shopify, just trying literally the opposite, and that's basically the operations I've been running on. It's been amazingly successful, so thank you Siemens. But, like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's so hard, especially building it in Canada, like, uh, in Ottawa and Toronto. It's funny, it always had this effect of, it came to value a lot, um, when I, when I had time. And, um, money. You know, I had all these meetings, and then talked with people, and, um, they described to me how real companies do these things, and then I went home and tried to implement it, and only years later did I realize, um, very few other companies describing what they're doing, um, actually did the things that they told me. Everyone gave me sort of a idealized highlight reel, and I compared that to my average, and then I implemented how I think you could do a better job on the stuff that they described, and sometimes ended up with Uh, good things, and I was very, very happy with this. And then, um, now, obviously I'm describing when this goes really right, and then just as often this went really wrong, right? Like, so I just, like, Shopify ended up being this, like, sort of lopsided thing that, like, is, like, um, probably ludicrously over-…

AI assessment note: “I never had another job, really, in my apprenticeship”