Farhan Thawar: belief

Transcript context

…It all just keeps coming back. Did the internship program emerge out of this co-op system that Canadian schools have and a Waterloo has a big co-op program? Yeah, I went to Waterloo. And so yeah, hint, hint. So I went to Waterloo and I did co-op and I did intern programs there. It was amazing. What a great experience, because what ends up happening is you leave Waterloo with your degree, but also with two years of experience because I did six four-month work terms, 24 months, and you end up walking. I think one of the big parts of it is just interview skills because I interviewed for 10 plus jobs every four months, and I did that six times. And so you come out having done lots... You have a lot of interview experience, but you also have work experience. And so just taking that to the next level, Shopify has always had interns. And what I felt like we needed to do was, again, restart this notion of early talent in the ecosystem. I would say one or two big differences with our intern program. One is we're making them come in three days a week versus full remote. And the reason for that is, and we're doing it just in three offices right now in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. And the reason for that is because we want them to have a cohort because early talent is different than you and I who've been in the industry. We worked in office, we worked out of office. We're more comfortable with navigating partnership discussions and talking to people in different companies. But these people have not. They may have never worked anywhere. And so to not have the IRL component would do them a disservice. And so we specifically made it in those ports and the people are traveling by the way, they're moving to Montreal to do the internship. It's great. And then if you're a mentor or manager for one of the interns, you have to at least see them like IRL once a month. So we're kind of making these experiences. And of course, they'll have a cohort of dozens of people that will be with them along the way. And so we think that'll just make their experience better. And of course, nothing like tapping someone on the shoulder and be like, "Have you seen this era before?" And so it's easier in an early talent situation. And then of course over time, if they become full-time, they can still come to the office. It's come if you want, but they can also go full remote. That is amazing. For folks that don't know anything about these co-op programs briefly, it's just basically while you're in school, before you graduated, during the summer, you go work at a company.…

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