Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke has told staff wanting to increase headcount that they must first demonstrate why the work can’t be done by AI.
In a far-reaching memo he also said that the staff’s use of artificial intelligence would form a key part of their performance reviews.
In relation to hiring he wrote: “Before asking for more headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.
“What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team? This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects.”
He said AI usage questions will be added to the company’s performance and peer review questionnaires.
“Learning to use AI well is an unobvious skill,” he said. “My sense is that a lot of people give up after writing a prompt and not getting the ideal thing back immediately.
“Learning to prompt and load context is important, and getting peers to provide feedback on how this is going will be valuable.
He added: “AI will totally change Shopify, our work, and the rest of our lives. We’re all in on this! I couldn’t think of a better place to be part of this truly unprecedented change than being here.
“You don’t just get a front row seat, but are surrounded by a whole company learning and pushing things forward together.
“Our job is to figure out what entrepreneurship looks like in a world where AI is universally available. And I intend for us to do the best possible job of that, and to do that I need everyone’s help.
Lutke co-founded Shopify in September 2004, and has served as CEO since April 2008.
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His comments have sparked a big debate on social media.
Jeetu Patel, EVP and chief product officer at Cisco, said the time for scepticism towards AI was over.
He said: “This note from Tobi to his employees at Shopify isn’t much different from what we have been discussing at Cisco for the past several months.
“The reality is that the time for us being rationally sceptical of AI has now come to an end. It is now irrational to not be going full speed in AI adoption.
“So even if you see challenges with AI, don’t use those challenges as justifications for not learning how to use AI. Rather, use the challenges you see to increase your dexterity with AI and bring your feedback into the overall process of iteration and improvement.
“Many have heard me say publicly that there will only be two kinds of companies that will exist in the future. Those that will be AI-forward companies and others who will discount AI and struggle for relevance. Cisco is a company that will unmistakably be AI-first.
“I greatly encourage every employee of Cisco to read this memo from Tobi at Shopify. I couldn’t agree with him more and appreciate how eloquently the sense of urgency and strategy is clearly articulated.”
Shopify’s CEO Tobi Lutke uploaded the internal memo on ‘X’ after it was leaked.
The memo said: “We are entering a time where more merchants and entrepreneurs could be created than any other in history. We often talk about bringing down the complexity curve to allow more people to choose this as a career. Each step along the entrepreneurial path is rife with decisions requiring skill, judgement and knowledge.
“Having AI alongside the journey and increasingly doing not just the consultation, but also doing the work for our merchants is a mind-blowing step function change here.
“Our task here at Shopify is to make our software unquestionably the best canvas on which to develop the best businesses of the future. We do this by keeping everyone cutting edge and bringing all the best tools to bear so our merchants can be more successful than they themselves used to imagine. For that we need to be absolutely ahead.
“Maybe you are already there and find this memo puzzling. In that case you already use AI as a thought partner, deep researcher, critic, tutor, or pair programmer. I use it all the time, but even I feel I’m only scratching the surface. It’s the most rapid shift.”
He added: “What we have learned so far is that using AI well is a skill that needs to be carefully learned by… using it a lot. It’s just too unlike everything else.
“The call to tinker with it was the right one, but it was too much of a suggestion. This is what I want to change here today. We also learned that, as opposed to most tools, AI acts as a multiplier.
“We are all lucky to work with some amazing colleagues, the kind who contribute 10X of what was previously thought possible. It’s my favourite thing about this company.
“And what’s even more amazing is that, for the first time, we see the tools become 10X themselves. I’ve seen many of these people approach implausible tasks, ones we wouldn’t even have chosen to tackle before, with reflexive and brilliant usage of AI to get 100X the work done.”