May 16, 2020 · 29m · how-i-built-this
How I Built Resilience: Live with Tobias Lütke and Jon Stein
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this resilience-focused episode, Guy Raz interviews Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke and Betterment founder Jon Stein to examine how technological acceleration, adaptive leadership, and disciplined innovation enable businesses and individuals to navigate economic crises.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 32.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.9 Guest teaching 3.4 Guest disagreement 0.3 Guy pushing back 0.5
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 19:17 Correcting Host Assumption on Revenue Impact
Jon gently rejects Guy's premise that Betterment's revenue stream was unaffected by the crisis, clarifying that they feel the downturn despite strong digital sign-ups.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 9:28 Confronting the Awkwardness of Pandemic ProfitsGuy presses Toby on whether it feels uncomfortable to see his business boom and add customers while most other businesses are facing catastrophic failure.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 12:45 Video Meeting Tile DynamicsToby explains to Guy why individual remote tiles create far more equitable and productive meetings than hybrid conference room tables, an insight Guy admits he had never realized.
Guy holds their own ▶ 6:05 Great Depression Business PrecedentsGuy illustrates his business history knowledge by detailing the founding of Publix supermarkets in 1930 and its growth into a 200,000-employee company during economic hardship.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adapting to Remote Operations and Shopify's Core Mission | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz contextualizes Shopify's growth by referencing its 2008 financial crisis origins and current employee scale. Toby explains how the company is operating remotely and shares the example of Heinz launching direct-to-consumer sales in seven days. | |
| Navigating Entrepreneurial Psychology and Self-Doubt | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Guy demonstrates strong domain recall by quoting Toby's past interview about entrepreneurial dread and citing Publix's 1930 depression-era founding. Toby details how the pandemic accelerated e-commerce trends by a full decade, pulling 2030 digital adoption into 2020. | |
| Emerging Product Niches and Pandemic Marketing Strategies | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Guy inquires about marketing strategies during lockdown conditions. Toby educates the host on niche consumer behavior shifts, highlighting how tapestries surged in sales as real-world Zoom backgrounds. | |
| Operating in 2030 with 2020 Software | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Guy pushes on the ethical awkwardness of a business thriving and profiting during a global catastrophe, citing Stewart Butterfield. Toby concedes the weirdness and reframes the company's challenge as operating in 2030 with 2020-era software. | |
| Redefining Work Culture and Virtual Meeting Dynamics | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Toby introduces an insight on remote work dynamics, arguing that individual video tiles are far superior to conference room cameras. Guy enthusiastically validates the observation, admitting he had never considered that perspective before. | |
| Evolving Executive Leadership and Asynchronous Communication | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks Toby how the crisis has altered his leadership style. Toby shares practical adjustments, such as switching from quarterly to weekly town halls and utilizing asynchronous screen recordings for design reviews. | |
| Intermission and Introduction to Jon Stein | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Guy introduces Jon Stein and asks if customers are pulling money out in a panic. Jon shares surprising data showing that ad hoc deposits surged by 26% overall and 37% among millennials during the market bottom. | |
| Digital Financial Resilience Amid Economic Shifts | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Guy demonstrates deep background knowledge by citing Betterment's quarter-basis-point fee structure and reading their 5,000-investor survey findings. Jon gently clarifies that the firm is affected by the downturn before explaining why older investors panic more than younger ones. | |
| Managing Government Stimulus Checks and Rising Savings Rates | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Guy relays a listener question regarding how to allocate government stimulus checks. Jon provides macroeconomic context on the national savings rate jumping from 9% to 15% and highlights telemedicine and education as primary areas for tech disruption. | |
| Hybrid Work Models and Post-Pandemic Workforce Mobility | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about the future of physical offices and lasting personal takeaways from the pandemic. Jon reflects on his previous assumption that CEOs had to be in the office daily and highlights the value of having dinner every night with family. | |
| Episode Wrap-Up, Upcoming Schedule, and Credits | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | This is a solo wrap-up segment containing announcements of upcoming live guests, event links, production credits, and a promotional snippet for NPR's Life Kit. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Lütke: Heinz launched a direct-to-consumer Shopify store in seven days
“We have had Heinz Ketchup go online, which is a 151 year old company that I don't think ever expected to go direct to consumer, but everyone's facing the same problems. And, you know, in seven days they stood up a site and now you can buy ketchup online.”
Lütke: Founder swings between optimism and dread accelerate as companies scale
“I think the thing that changes as the company gets bigger is that the oscillation between those two things just keeps getting faster”
Lütke: Digitally Native Retailers Replaced Over 90% of Lost Sales
“The businesses that were More digitally native. Business that had retail, but also were online and on the different channels like Instagram or Pinterest. They have replaced over 90% of their lost sales.”
Lütke: A Company's Formative Years Shape Long-Term Expense Discipline
“I also think that the formative years of companies end up mattering a lot more than I think anyone's willing to admit. Like, I can absolutely see a supermarket chain founded right at the dawn of the Great Depression having a more sustainable attitude towards e…”
Lütke: Shopify fast-tracked local delivery features despite software quality concerns
“So what we try as much as we can is launch everything, even if you're uncomfortable about the quality. If you have something in the pipeline and the roadmap that makes a difference Right now, we are currently getting this out of the door. So we are trying, lik…”
Lütke: The pandemic pulled 2030 forward, leaving society with 2020-quality software
“Like, we brought 20, 3010 years forward. So that also means we all are in 2030 right now, with circa 20 20 quality software.”
Lütke: Treating company culture as static destroys it as organizations scale
“The way a lot of companies end up destroying their own culture is by seeing it as a static thing that has to be kept rather than wanting to evolve it with the situation that they are in. Like it's impossible to have the same culture in a five people company as…”
Lütke: Loosely coupled teams only work with shared fundamentals
“We love to be loosely coupled, but loosely coupled only really works when we come together and base our decisions on the same fundamentals.”
Stein: Only 2% more Betterment users withdrew funds in March 2020
“Among all of our customers, only two percent more customers withdrew in March than did in a normal month for us, and by far more customers were depositing the withdrawing”
Stein: 26% more Betterment users made ad hoc deposits during crash
“26% more of our total customer base was depositing ad hoc, not just auto deposit, but actually actively putting more money in than pulling money out.”
Stein: 37% more millennial Betterment users deposited than withdrew
“For millennials, the most interesting thing is that for millennials, it was 37% more were putting ad hoc money in than withdrawing.”
Betterment survey: 33% of Gen Z lost jobs to COVID vs 8% Boomers
“In our survey of millennials, I think it was 33% of Gen Z lost jobs in our survey due to COVID versus only about eight percent of the baby boomers had lost jobs.”
Stein: Older Betterment investors were more likely to panic-withdraw than youth
“For investors who are closer to retirement, we're recommending more conservative portfolios. We're putting them into more cash. We're putting them into more bonds that are less volatile in times like these. And nevertheless, they're more likely to withdraw tha…”
Stein: 40% of Betterment users invested stimulus checks; only 15% spent them
“We're seeing another 40% put it into long-term retirement savings, things like an IRA, Or a four Oh one K and actually the smallest minority, maybe it's maybe it's 15% is putting putting that money toward say an immediate spending need.”