Tobi Lütke: evaluation

Transcript context

…I like that that touches also on this idea of, again, maximizing potential, the potential of the teams, the potential of the employees Because of course, the really important decisions, we don't talk about. This is the most important thing. Shopify probably makes... What?... millions of decisions every day, like, write this code this way, yes, I'm going to add this unit test, maybe I'm skipping a unit test. Might be the difference between a future production audit. Millions and millions of these tiny decisions. So, you're not hiring engineers primarily or accountants, you're hiring people who make excellent decisions, given their specialization and areas they're overseeing. And given that, decision making as a concept is actually really understudied, I find. I think these are instances where we can just learn to make decision making together. Because I think while a lot of decisions are made independently, we are a product company, we are on a mission, and we want our product to feel like something that a single person made, in the same way how any author tries to write a book that clearly reads that it came from one mind. Because people can see and spot this, if this doesn't happen. You end up with something that looks like a television remote, where there's a Netflix button over here... It's like you can reverse [inaudible 00:59:41] from the remote control. That's important. Using these moments and also bringing decision making inwards to go and say, hey, let's have very efficient opportunities for as many people that can possibly get together, make decisions together, not as a democracy but with clear who needs to convince who. That because otherwise this ends up just taking way too long. Give a opportunity for everyone to change my mind over Glenn's mind, and so on, is 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 Tobi Tornado actually, the way you operate that. I love it. It ends up being this interesting microcosm of your first principle's way of thinking. The story is, I think you've said at one point that the best way to get people to give you insights is to say something they disagree with on the internet.…

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